Our puppy has been sleeping in his crate since we had him at eight weeks. He goes out in the garden for one last wee about 10 when we go up to bed and then I come down about 6 to let him out. He’s never once had an accident in there and only uses it at night or if we go out without him for and hour or so during the day. He’s 4 months now and is growing out of the awful nippy stage and is generally a well behaved dog apart from the chewing! I’m wonder how long before puppies don’t need their crates altogether? He and the cat are sound asleep on the sofa together as I write this and I’m sure he’d quite happily stay there all night without causing any destruction! Even though he doesn’t suffer any separation anxiety or anything and just goes to sleep when we go out, my main concern would be leaving him out of the crate alone during the day. He’s chewed though Alexa’s power cable already and that was while we were there so I’m sure he’d get up to all kinds of mischief if he was alone! As I said, he’s never alone for long during the day. He is our second dog... he’s a black lab and our first dog was a chocolate lab and it was so long ago that he was a puppy (he died this March aged 14) that I can’t remember when the chewing stops!
Choosing the right time to de-crate your puppy is a bit of a judgment call. Labs can be persistent chewers for much of the first year and sometimes beyond. But many people do successfully lose the crate at around the first birthday.
Lots of us use a puppy playpen, to keep the pup semi confined. Cooper's had a bed in one end and water in the other. I think she had the run of the house most of the time before she was 5 months old, but we did lose a few chachkas to her. I can't remember how long we keep the pen up, but we did have a dog gate on the kitchen so we could keep her in there if we wanted to. We didn't take it down until she was about 4 yrs, but we only used it occasionally when we wanted to keep her in or out of the kitchen for some reason. The folding play pens are very handy to have even with adult dogs. We are using ours now to keep the dogs out of the construction zone during a several month re-model.
