Beyond the crate

[Margo]

Hi!
Lily is doing very well in her crate, but not so well if I leave to do anything while we are at home together, when she is not in her crate and we're just hanging out in the family room.. She goes crazy if I leave to go to the bathroom, or go to get my shoes from upstairs. I'd like to start working on leaving her in her room (the laundry room) but outside of her crate, now that she's doing pretty well with the housebreaking. For some reason, I'm hesitating to do this yet... I think because I know it might be ugly. She seems to want to be with me, but only where she wants to be. Not a good longterm option, obviously! Any advice?

[diane silver]

Hi Margo,
I don't know how old your Lily is, but Emma is now 4 months old, and over the weekend, learned to go up and down the stairs in our house! She, also, cried pitifully when I left the room for any reason and I felt like a prisoner in my kitchen/family room! Now that she is able to go upstairs with me, she follows me (I try to make sure that she's pottied beforehand) and it really has changed my life considerably. Also, last night we were upstairs watching tv in our den, and she actually left the room and went downstairs and was in front of the door asking to go out - yay!! I think that she's finally "turning the corner" and would say that you probably can begin to give her a bit more freedom. Another thing you can do is put a lightweight leash on her so that if you catch her doing something she shouldn't be, you can immediately grab her and take her outside or correct her (I did this, also). Hope this helps, and let me know how it goes.

[1qrgkdwnfqccb]

hi,
i found with izzy our 1 yr old goldendoodle that i moved the crate out of the room a little at a time until it was out of the room, while we were with her... it took a bit but worked great! i am going to do the same with tucker, our new 8 week old labradoodle because i am having the same problem with him, he is fine in the crate sound asleep but the second someone moves to leave the room he goes bizzerko!! so in the next week we will be slowly moving to the kitchen, and hopefully we will get to the sunroom in no time lol!
good luck

[1qrgkdwnfqccb]

i also should add that we leave izzy out of her bed "crate" all day & night as long as long we are home, but i still do not have enough trust in her to leave her alone while we are out, not even in our sunroom...we tell her to go to bed before we leave the house and she is happy to go, at least seems to be (lol) and we will do the same with tucker. i am just too scared to come home to my house destroyed...a friend of my has a husky and she did that, you can't even begin to imagine how much damage a dog left alone can do to a house, he ate everything....the couch, matresses, clothes, shoes, everything, and she was only gone for a couple of hours. i just can't take that chance hahaha

[Tamara & Giada]

I never left my puppies. They were either in the crate or with me. Giada is now 9 months old and we are just starting to give more freedom, but I think until they are quite old they should be in the crate or with you. So, give it a little more time, but if she is ok in the crate why not put her there?

[Margo]

Hi everyone, Thank you for your great replies... all very helpful. Tamara, do you sometimes put Giada in her crate for short periods (say, 10 or 15 minutes) during the day? Lily (3 mos.) is okay with her crate, but unless she's a a little tired, she doesn't LOVE it. I'm a big believer in this crate business, but I find I feel bad about leaving her for short periods in it, unless she's ready to "chill out," or if I am leaving the house to run errands. I think this is some kind of guilt left over from raising my children when they were babies... I was never any good at letting them "cry it out", even after the pediatrician said they were old enough to let them. We did, and everyone lived to tell about it!

Also along these lines, how big is everyone's crate? I have a full sized one with a divider panel to make it a better size for a puppy. Now that she's coming along with the housebreaking, would it be helpful to make it a little bigger for her? That little space just looks so confining to me, but I know they say that puppies like it that way. bye!

[Sam]

After reading the comments I don't think we're doing the crate thing properly..... Ollie's crate is in our family room as he can't get down the stairs yet so we try and keep his life on the same level.... The crate door is open all of the time and he occasionally goes in for a rest or sleep and the kids know that when he is in there noone can talk to him. He gets put in the crate at night, and will go in by himself when we say bed time, and stays their happily all night. If I am home we have a gate blocking the stairs which he will jump at when I am upstairs but gets bored with that, if he drives us insane we will put him on the deck. I put him on the deck or in an outside pen my husband made if I am going out. I find myself timing my 'upstairs jobs' with his mid day nap, lol!!

We bought an XL crate Margo. The breeder said he would use it when he is big so to go with that size. It didn't come with a divider so we put in a small packing box to basically half the size of the crate but we took that out after a couple of weeks when we knew he wouldn't soil in there.

[Tamara & Giada]

Sounds fine to me. Is it working for you?

[Tamara & Giada]

Yes, we use it all day here and there. No guilt with me due to the fact I'm home ALL day and she just goes in there now and then. Those that work outside the home crate them all day and night and they are fine, so mine is fine with the little she is crated. She also goes in there on her own too though:)

My crate is HUGE!!! We are getting ready to graduate her to our lundry room, because I am tierd of the crate in my kitceh...........take up SO much room. Sure make it larger if you would like and see what happens.

[Sam]

Im looking forward to being able to move our crate to the laundry.... do I need to train Ollie to go down stairs or do you think it is something he will just do when he is bigger. He does go down very shallow stairs but unfortunately our inside stairs are quite steep....
What we are doing works for us but like you Tamara I don't work so have the luxury of letting him out.

[Jill and Cody]

Hi Margo. I have a 6 month goldendoodle who does NOT like his crate. He hasn't since I got him at 8 weeks. I was just told by a neighbor that he barks all day when I leave him to go to work. I don't think it is separation anxiety because he doesn't usually need to be in the same room as me. I wouldn't leave him out of his crate if I'm not home because he chews anything he can get his mouth on and i am running out of high storage places. And I think he would jump the child gate I'd put up at the kitchen entrance. Regarding your question, maybe try to leave Lily in the room with her crate but have it open. Leave for only an hour and see what happens?