When can you put a puppy to an outside kennel?

My Vet would say there are several advantages to having you dog outside. He is quite against long hours of crating and believes it could be responsible for him seeing more dogs with urninary incontinence, joint disorders and neuroses.

My original post was meant to highlight the possible dangers of being outside unattended. While neither was confined to a fenced run or kennel I do know of two dogs who were shot by neighbours. Neighbours tend to think, rightly I suppose, that you know your dog is running at large, you know they have chickens or calves, therefore what else is there for them to do to protect their lively hood but shoot your dog. One was killed. Ditto for leaving your dog outside in a run and it barks and the person three doors down is on night duty that week, similar thing.

 

We have a dog door going to the back yard so our dogs can go out anytime they want. Dog theft is rare where we live so that is not much of an issue, and neither of our dogs have any tendency to try to escape, or to bark, more than occasionally. For us the dog door is a great solution, but we have friends who can't let their dogs loose in their yard(s) because they bark at other dogs insistently. Cooper will run around the yard on her own occasionally, but mostly both dogs prefer to stay inside and only go to the back yard when we go out, or to go to the bathroom.

 

I kept my lovely Max (RIP) in an outdoor kennel when it was nice outside and I worked. He would spend 1/2 the day (in the hot summer, it would be the cooler mornings) outside in the kennel, and the other 1/2 of the day in the house. It worked so well for us. He was a happy, well adjusted boy, I had zero problems with it.