Access to entire home - how old was your doodle?

[Kristen Eric Lacey and Paisley]

Lacey is 15 weeks old and I was just wondering how old your doodle was when you started allowing them access to your entire home? Right now we live in an apartment and Lacey currently has access to the kitchen and living room (it's open concept). We have her gated off and only allow her to go into other rooms when we are in that room with her or when she is sleeping in her crate in our bedroom.

[Kristen Eric Lacey and Paisley]

Thanks everyone for your feedback. Just some more info on Lacey - we brought her home March 29th. We immediately started with crate training and potty training. She has not had an accident since that first week and even those accidents were probably our fault just getting used to how frequently she needed to go out. She now has access to her water bowl all day and evening and let's us know when she needs to go out. She has never had an accident in her crate. She goes out at 11:00pm before bed and wakes up at 6:45am to go out.

In regards to the crate training - she's done well since that first week. We are actually upgrading the size of her crate this week because she's outgrown her current one. Eventually we don't want to crate her - that is another thing I was wondering about, when to stop crating.

Our apartment has been puppy proofed this whole time and there is virtually nothing for her to get into. She is good at her commands - she knows "come", "sit", "stay" and "kisses". We are going to start working on "lay down" soon.

[Mireille Renaud]

Sounds just like ours. We got him when he was 3 months, underestimated how big he would get so we had to get him a bigger crate about a month later, and then just a few weeks after that we decided to phase it out because we travel a lot and bringing a giant crate was not practical!! I wish we hadn't spent the money on a new crate because really, if your pup is used to sleeping in your room with you and hasn't had many accidents anyway, odds are she understands that she is not to relieve herself in there. I would recommend trying letting her loose in your room at night, if thats your end game anyway, before buying a new crate :)

ps - coincidentally or not, when we stopped crating our pup, he also started sleeping longer in the morning. It's a beautiful thing. He's 7 months now, and for at least 1-1.5 months, weve been able to leave a water bowl out all night and he still holds it from ~10:30 to 8:00 or later!!

[Nancy and Georgia Brown]

I think it really depends on the puppy for all of this as I don't think any timeline is something to follow. You just need to know your dog.

If it gets into things while you are there, it's more likely to get into things when you aren't there. If she shows no signs of problems when you give her free reign of the house when you are there, start removing yourself from the room and then the house in stages. Check her reaction. And if all signs are good slowly increase the time and/or distance.

As far as crate training....I did use that in the beginning. But at about 11-12 weeks I let her have free reign of the house. And only crated her when I was out of the house for more than an hour. (not even crating at night if I was home). She was okay with the crate but seldom went there on her own. I have a small house, so when she outgrew it I sold it. She's been fine. I do have a folding pen that I can use if I need it, but so far it sits by the back door and I now use it when I want the door open for fresh air but don't want her running around in the back yard barking or digging (her personal favorite).

If she had displayed any problem behavior at any point I would have stepped back. I am very lucky with her as she's just not a destructive dog. BUT IT'S ALL HER AND NOT ME. Meaning she's just that kind of dog (and not perfect by any means as she does have other issues)

With my last dog I never bought dog toys because they would be destroyed in 10 minutes. With Georgia I don't buy them because she has so many from when I first got her and they are all still in mint condition.

[Abigail *George & Juno*]

We have the same dog. George plays with her toys, does not destroy them at all. Also, totally not interested in our stuff. Lol

[Abigail *George & Juno*]

We let George stay out of the crate while we weren't home when she was just shy of 13 weeks. She was house trained, and I remember us coming home just 1.5 hours later and SO saying "I can't find her" she was snuggled up in the back of her crate. Like Karen, we don't have food or things she shouldn't be around laying out. My closet does have a lower bar and my long sleeved shirts hang low enough that she could pull them down if she wanted...she doesn't. Other than that our house is pretty puppy proof other than electrical cords. She's never been interested. She's honestly never gotten ahold of anything she shouldn't, she did try to investigate a used (gross) Kleenex during cold season. Sometimes when we leave the house we leave her out, and other times we put her in the crate. Just depends on the day and the circumstances. But if we're home, she has run of the house. She's 6.5 months old now, so I suppose there's still time. ;-)

[Karen, Jasper and Jackdoodle]

George sounds like my kind of dog! 

[Abigail *George & Juno*]

SO wants another JUST like her....I don't think he realizes how lucky we are.

Sometimes we do crate her at night, there are just some days that you don't want to wake up with her sitting on your face, or her paw in your mouth, or her licking your ear. I can't decide which one of us sleeps weird. Lol

[Nancy and Georgia Brown]

Georgia also has a paper fetish. More so than food. But paper with food is the ultimate.

I think she doesn't like to work too hard. Kongs are okay if it is easy. Anything that requires more than a minute to figure out will get ignored. She doesn't care about food that much and she doesn't care to be challenged to get it.

[Linda, Charlie Brown and Beau]

Hi Kristen ~ it sounds like you have a system in place that works well for you.  I would continue to do what you are doing until you are sure she is totally reliable not only in the potty training area, but also reliable when unattended.  Many puppies get bored and then proceed to get into things they shouldn't when no one is watching. BTW - Lacey is a beautiful little girl!

[Julie and Max]

Max had free run of the house at 5 months, before that he was gated in the kitchen. Like others have said, I just puppy proofed, and still keep it puppy proof even though he never tries to get into anything. I think it's just knowing/trusting your dog, training, and keeping them well exercised for most dogs. Good luck. :)

[Judy Gordon]

Miah was first crated, then "baby gated" in a powder room for the first 3-4 months. Once she was potty trained, she pretty much had as much freedom as she wanted. Once she learned to climb stairs and discovered socks, we had to work on "Leave it!" And even now she will occasionally snatch and run with a sock that falls out the clothes basket. She loves to be chased. She's a chewer, but we've been fortunate with minimal damage to cabinet edges and chair rails. We found that as long as she has lots of chew toys, bully sticks and bones, she's pretty content. We kept her crate because it's actually an end table. Sometimes when we scold her for whining or barking at neighbors walking by she will put herself in time-out. Or maybe she's just pouting. She decided to adopt the den as her bedroom, and after making sure we are snug in bed, she hops off the bed and goes to her room. Hubby used to say she had too much freedom as dogs are den animals, but as long as she's not getting into trouble she can have as much space as she wants. He especially loves it when she climbs onto MY side of the bed and snuggles with him. He's learning to put paper towels (paper anything) in the trash instead of leaving them laying around. She like to shred paper and is great at breaking down cardboard boxes. I bring boxes home from work just to watch her rip them to shreds.

[Julie, Eloise & Beasley]

Eloise also had access to the entire house when she was reliably potty trained, around 4 mos - but that was only when I was home.  I kept her crated while I was at work until she was one; that would have stopped a couple mos before, but didn't want her first taste of real independence to have Christmas trees/ornaments in the mix.  That said, I did keep a couple rooms gated that I just didn't want her going in unsupervised, and to this day the upstairs bathroom is still gated because she loves kleenex from the wastebasket, toilet paper and laying in the bathtub!  Just easier for my own peace of mind.  (She does fine with the gate just leaning across the doorway - she doesn't go near gates, so it's not a huge inconvenience for me.)

I agree that you just have to know your dog and be able to trust her unattended.  Eloise has never been destructive, ever - but it took me a while before I felt at comfortable with her free and unsupervised on the days I work in the office.  All my sofas, chairs etc have exposed wood legs - and I just imagined those to be giant doggie chews, even though she didn't chew them in my presence.  I think I've just heard too many horror stories, so I was overly cautious and went with better safe than sorry.

It sounds like Lacey is doing great!  I can relate on upsizing the crate, too - I've done that twice.  Ultimately wound up with a 48" that you could house a grizzly bear in, but that was totally due to my guilt for crating her so long when I felt like she probably could be out - not because she was that large, lol!