leaving your doodle home alone

[Kendra MacEachern]

Hey everyone,

 

My boy is now 9 months old! so hard to believe but he is!

I am just wondering when you started to leave your doodle home alone not in a crate. Mine is crate trained and he spends his time in his crate when I am not home...he usually comes with me everywhere I go! but I would like to start trusting him to behave while left at home.

 

Any suggestions about when to start and maybe some tips from past experience?

 

Thanks !

[Melissa]

Buddy is 14 months and we still crate him when we leave the house.  You can probably start with a little time away from the house 5 minutes, 10 minutes, etc., to see if he does anything.  Then gradually work up to longer times.

[Heather & Brinkley]

We started around 8-9 months.  We just paid attention to when he started to grow out of the chewing stage and that's when we began.  First we'd leave him out when we'd do some yard work/or mow the lawn; then we'd leave him out when we'd run to the store; then we we'd leave him out when we'd have a doctor appointment.  We've never let him have the run of the house though.  We have a heated/ac sunroom with a older loveseat in it.  He LOVES it in there.  He actually hangs out there even when we are home-- it's like he's made it his large den... so he now stays in there when we are gone-- but it's big enough that he can play if wants to while we are out.  We don't even have the crate set-up anymore.

 

Good luck!  Just start small. 

[Gail+Kathleen,(Sydney+Olivia:)]

We started to leave Olivia out of her crate (in the kitchen with gates on the doorways) when she was about 9 months old.  We had our dog walker check on our two Doodles for the first few weeks when they were first out of their crates.  All was fine until one day when we came home and found that Olivia ate a huge chunk out of our windowsill.  We were told that she must have been bored.  This would not have been too devastating for us, except we had our house up for sale at the time and it didn't look too presentable.

[Linda, Webber and Seda]

Webber was out of his crate and alone in the upstairs of the house from six months on.  He was never a chewer and didn't bother anything.  Seda, well she's another matter!  I let her stay in the bedroom with Webber, once when she was 9 months.  She ate a houseplant and vomited all over the bedroom.  So, back into the crate until last week.  She is a year now.  I left a kong with peanut butter for each of the doodles.  I came home and Seda had taken two things off the bedside table and had them on the bed.  A pen and the remote control to the space heater (which I had unplugged).  Both items had tooth marks in them but they were not destroyed.  I cleared the bedside table and gave her another chance later in the week.  This time she found a good sized plastic turtle (a gift from my grandson) that was sitting in the pot containing a large ficus tree, and took it to my bed.  There were no teeth marks on Mr. Turtle.  I am retired so I'm home every day and on a daily basis Seda doesn't chew anything anymore.  I find this behavior very interesting.   I think how they do alone in the house depends on the dog.  I guess you just give it a try, after getting important or dangerous things out of the way, and see how a short trip away works.  Good luck!

[Jennifer Goaring]

I think my dad's poodle does this... if left in the house, you will find random objects left on the bed or in his dog beds.  He seems to like checking things out when my parents' are gone.

 

We still leave Sam in his crate at night and when we leave.  I think the leather couch is just too tempting and I have no real way to gate him out of this room with the totally open floor plan.  He took a bite out of the ottoman that we had to go with the couch and we have since just ditched it (because my kids also jumped on it and the combination of bite marks/chunks out of it and broken insides from the jumping just make it un-useable).  But is was a $400 ottoman, so a bit annoying.  I just don't want him sampling the couch even though I don't think he would at this age... 17 month old.

 

We are getting a 2nd doodle (a 13 month old) and my goal is to let them roam the house (the gated downstairs at least) together sometime after they are both 2 years old and I have had time to train and test them out for periods of time).  We'll see how it goes... I don't really mind the crates much as I don't have people over all that often... but it just seems like they may want to have room to roam.

 

Any worries about potty accidents?  What that happen when they are much older?

[Jane, Rooney & Stuart]

Rooney is almost 7 months and so he is still crated at this time when I am gone but I do so look forward to the day that I can leave him loose while I'm gone.  Right now I don't crate him - I leave him in his ex-pen - a little more freedom.  I ALWAYS make sure to take his collar off, I've heard of bad accidents.  I'm going to watch you to see how you do it and learn!!!  :)

[Camilla and Darwin]

We started leaving Darwin out of his crate during the day when he was older than a year old. He didn't destroy anything, but we were always stressing out about it and he did seem more nervous when we left him out (we have a webcam). He loves his crate so we decided to just continue crating him.

[Jane, Rooney & Stuart]

Darwin buddy - wish we lived closer - you could dog sit for Rooney!

[Camilla and Darwin]

Darwin would love to hang out with Rooney! But you don't need to move, I will. I think we both know Florida's weather is better than Utah's right now. LOL

[Adina P]

It all depends on your dog I guess.  My oldest, Rosco, is 5 y.o.  My youngest is 10 months.  I have never left the 10 month old out of her crate while home alone for any length of time.  I'm pretty sure it would be a bad idea with her.  With Rosco we started leaving him out of his crate a little before 2 years and then completely graduated him from his crate at the age of 2.  However, he recently learned to steal food so ... if I had an extra crate that was big enough for him (Boca uses his old crate now) I think I might start crating him again.  I have a feeling Boca will need to wait at least till she's 2.  She is far too much of a chewer and I can see anything made of paper or cloth getting shredded if she were left alone.

[Lynette Main]

All three of mine are 15 months old. They will be 12 before they are left alone!! Kidding!!! I trust the two little girls,they just will sleep.Shea will eat everything he sees. He'll be an old man before he gets the run of the house with no one home. ha ha._s-lowly is the best way to see how they will act when alone.My Cujo was great.He just found a bed and slept. It just depends on the dog.

[Pat and Traveler]

Sounds like you've gotten some excellent advice!  Trav has had the run of the house ever since he passed the puppy chewing stage--7 or 8 or 9 months...?  First, it was just a few minutes for some yard work or a quick trip to the store, then gradually longer periods of time.  He's never gotten into anything or made any messes.  He mostly just lies on the end of the bed where he has a view of the driveway and waits for me.  At least that's where I always find him.  He's been left alone for a max of maybe 6 hours.