At what age did you allow your doodle to roam freely during the day while gone?

[Rachel & Nathan]

As I'm sure this is a hard question to answer I just wonder when you had success at leaving them out while being gone. Molly had done a tremendous job at potty training. She hasn't gone in the kennel in about 2 months. She holds it until let out to go outside. I just want to know how you succeeded at this, or if you ever did.
Also Molly will be spayed Thursday. I'm a little nervous about it and just wonder how fast recovery is and how smoothly it went for some of you! Thanks so much!

[Jessica, Loki and Moose]

I'm assuming when you say leave them out, you mean in a house not outside? My boys are 1 year and 8months and 8months and they are both confined to parts of the house when I am gone for longer periods of time. If I let them have free range of my house they would probably be fine, but for my own sanity I keep them on tiled areas that are free of pillows and other things they have chewed in the past. If I am gone for short periods of time I will leave them out and just close the bedroom doors and hide my pillows. :)

[BG and Gavin]

I started the process at 6 months.  It should be noted however that Gavin was never destructive as a puppy.  I began by allowing him out of the crate but confining him with a baby gate to a hallway and then slowly introducing more and more rooms and space.  I think it is always is best for them to have a big long walk, done their business and had their meal so that they can more easily go into a settled state when you leave.  I also would leave him a stuffed kong, but he did not touch it until we got home and then he would run and get it to eat.  

[Cheryl and Finnegan]

At about 4 months I began to leave Finn gated in a play pen and then by 5-6 months gated in the kitchen.By about a year, he was allowed free run of the house. But I should say that after the initial puppy phase, he was not a chewer or a counter surfer.  Several days a week he came to work with me, and I also worked from home.  

[Jane, Guinness and Murphy]

I think it depends on the dog and when they end their "destructive phase".  If your dog can be trusted not to potty inside and is not chewing or counter surfing, then it should be okay to leave them uncrated.  I still confine my guys to our bedroom with a baby gate at the door (I don't close the door).  This is their "comfortable place" where they have access to my bed (although Guinness is the only one who gets up there), a few toys, and I leave the TV on for background noise.  This keeps them from trying to "guard" the house.  If they're not gated in our room they are listening for any sound and are likely to bark, but in my room they relax and sleep.

[Moe]

I left my first pup at 4 mo. She had the complete run of the house. Never had a problem.

My second pup is 1.5 years and we are not there yet. She will occasionally still have accidents and if left unattended she may chew on molding and electrical chords. She is crated overnight as well. Honestly I don't see her ever being left unattended. 

PS: I used to think it was my superior dog training. I would secretly feel smug when people said they still had to crate their dog. Yea, now I realize I got really lucky with the first dog. :) 

[Sue, Murphy and Bella ()*o*()]

With Murphy it was about 6 months before we even had the opportunity to leave him as we were traveling in an RV and he went everywhere with us, or was in a gated area inside the tiled area of the RV for very short periods. Once we were in a home at 6 months, we left for a few hours and then discovered his separation anxiety. We found him howling in a dark corner with urine at every exit door. He was a hot mess.  We didn't leave him alone anymore than absolutely necessary after than and although his anxiety got a little better, we decided to add Bella when he was 18 months. That has helped tremendously as they are never seperated. We were able to leave her out in the house, with him by the time she was about 5 months old. She is a counter surfer and did chew carpets and drywall, but a little Bitter Apple and stopping it when we saw her has stopped that. Well, not the counter surfing. We just always have anything edible off the counters.  They even got into a whole 5 lb bag of flour once.  Wish I had pictures, but it wasn't as funny to me then as it is now.

[Sue, Murphy and Bella ()*o*()]

Forgot to mention Bella's experience with spaying. She was about 6 months old, had the procedure and was awake by 1:00pm and home with us by 5:00pm. We were given pain meds and told to keep her quiet. The first night she was very drugged and she sllooowwwllyy would go out to potty, then right back to sleep. I kept her medicated as often as the prescription allowed although it was prn -as needed.  I believe in staying on top of pain.  

We had Murphy spend a few days at our daughters so there was no temptations to play and by the 3rd day she was her normal active self. Keeping her quiet then was an issue as she also had a hernia repair done at the time of the spay so a little more extensive surgery, but she seemed to know how much she could do and would stop on her own and rest.

We never used a cone as she didn't try to get at the stitches at all. I didn't even need to cover the area. That may be rare, IDK.  So all in all, we had a great experience, but I chose to have her come home so I could recover her myself as I just didn't want her alone and scared in a cage all night as mine are never caged and she's a real mama's girl. But that's up to each individual and what they are comfortable with doing. 

[Debbie & Gibbs]

Gibbs is two years old and my husband and I just had this conversation yesterday. We have a large laundry room with a gate on it and dog beds and their toys. We have 4 dogs, so we aren't leaving the 4 of them roaming around the house. Gibbs likes to counter surf and loves to steal pens, pencils, placemats, towels and other things to chew on. We decided they are safe in the laundry romm, have nice fluffy beds and that is the best place for all of them while we are gone.

I think we are really scared to come home to 4 dogs being loose for a couple hours and it would look like party central!

[Lori, Winnie, Bob and Indie]

We gave Wininie run of the house around 6 months. We started out by putting her kennel (with the door open) gated off in the kitchen for a week or so and then gave her full run for an hour or 2 before trying it all day. She is not a destructive chewer, and doesn't have any separation anxiety, so that made it super easy. This was very different than a Samoyed I had several years ago. That dog couldn't be reliably trusted until she was well over a year old, and even then we would come home to find torn up magazines, etc.

Spaying was a breeze for Winnie. I dropped her off in the morning and was told she would be ready to be picked up after work. Well, I panicked a little when they called me at noon. But, they were calling to tell me that she woke up 15 minutes after surgery and was more than ready to come home. No drowsiness whatsoever! Lol They do laser surgery at that facility, and no external stitches- I literally had to search to find the incision. She tried to lick it a couple of times, but a quick "eh eh" on my part was all it took for her to leave it alone. I watched her like a hawk that first day and she never needed a cone. The hardest part was trying to keep her from jumping up, and not being able to exercise her vigorously for 2 weeks. She was driving us crazy from being inactive, so I cheated and took her back to her usual doggy daycare after about 10 days. :-)

[Julie, and Cora and Savannah]

Cora wasn't ready to go crate-free alone in the house until she was 2 and a half. There was so much destruction before and now there is almost never any destruction, knock on wood. Up until age 2 she was still getting rolls of toilet paper and tearing them 

[Leslie, Yogi & Maci Bear]

We really tried to use the crate with Yogi when he was a puppy. He had a problem with being crated and confined, so then we tried just gating him in the kitchen. It was magic, he did great with it. We eventually let him have free run of the house. He just did better that way when we were gone. Maci was in the crate for a brief time, but she had free run probably by 6 months.
It really depends on whether you think your puppy would be safe in the home. We used my iPad to film ours as we began leaving them to see how they would do. They just sleep until we get home. I always turn the TV onto something low key to make a constant distracting noise and just calmly say goodbye as I leave.
Now when we leave and say bye, they just turn around and go jump up on our bed.

[Diane and Alma]

I'll add my 2 cents regarding spaying.  We put a t-shirt on Alma with a hair tie on the back to keep it up off the floor.  This helped prevent her from licking at the stitches.  We put the cone of shame on her when out running errands or at night when we couldn't be watching her.  The vet told us to keep her from jumping on the furniture so we propped up pillows to discourage her.  Also, she wasn't suppose to go up and down stairs.  So, we gated them off and carried her up and down. I also remember not being able to walk her until the stitches came out.  Hope it goes smoothly.