Hello. We pick up our puppy next week, and have her crate all ready in preparation. I am trying to work out how long I will be able to leave her in the crate (once she has been carefully introduced to it so she is happy in it. I'm not going to rush this)? I have read numerous articles that say that you can leave a puppy for an hour per month of its age, plans an hour. So for an 8/9 week old puppy, that would be three hours. But the advice from Pippa Mattinson in her brilliant puppy book seems a little more ambiguous - 'don't leave a puppy in a crate too long'. I don't want or need to leave her for anything like three hours for a while yet, but I would appreciate it if anyone can give me more clarity. Many thanks.
Hi there, to begin with you will only be able to leave your puppy in her crate for seconds at a time, and then work up to a minute, then a couple of minutes, then five minutes, ten minutes and so on. Personally, I think it would be cruel and wrong to leave any dog unattended in a crate for longer than around 3-4 hours. For a puppy under six months, I would make that much shorter - max two hours.
I leave them for about half an our until they are six months old, then an hour. Any longer is too long confined to a crate imo. I will leave my four year old, Tatze, for three hours on her own, not in the crate, but no longer. When we both were out at work she went to doggy day care. And welcome to you from Mags, Tatze and Keir from Manchester UK Tatze is my pet dog, a black Lab and she's four years old. Tatze means 'paw' in German. Keir is my fifth Guide Dog puppy, a yellow Golden Retriever/Flatcoat cross and he's five months old.
I read the one hour plus an hour per month of age too. But, as per my VEt, I'm not a fan of long crating so I arbitrarily decided three hours a DAY was my limit. However I did also use a sturdy pen or gated my kitchen so puppy was safe but could move around at will. The crate with door open was in the pen or kitchen. Big caveat here, puppies can ruin your kitchen and hurt themselves. Mine didn't.
Thank you all for your replies. And for the Manchester welcome! I too have no intention to crate for log periods. But it's useful to know some rough guidelines for the early days... I am going to make sure that the crate training is done slowly and in a fun way. Get her used to her den!
Hi and welcome from me and my boy Bailey. I only ever used a crate overnight until Bailey was about 5 months old and then we took a leap of faith and stopped using the crate. We were lucky as Bailey slept through the night from day one and apart from one skirting board which was a bit of a half hearted attempt at chewing, he left fixtures and fittings alone (we, however, were another matter entirely!). We used gates, one of which we used to create a calm down/time out spot but really didn't need it much after he was about 7 months old. When we have to go out and leave him (for no longer than 3 hours at 20 months old) he is put upstairs with access to water, and he just snoozes the time away on our bed.
Our experience was similar to Samantha's above. He only went in his crate during the daytime if he felt like it. Which he did quite a bit. At about 4 or 5 months we took the big leap and left the door open at night. No problem whatsoever. He would hang out in the bedroom for a few hours and then head off to his real bed. We replaced the crate with a nice comfy doggy bed and gave the crate away. A while back I had to go on a day trip and I could not take him along. My OH was also gone all day. Murphy does not like car rides, and really hates long ones, so there was no option. 8 hours later? No problems at all. He was happy to go out of course. I was not too worried because he goes out in the evening around 6:30 and then is not interested in going out again until about 7 the next morning. Frankly, I do not know how he does it! The thing to understand about all this is that we are both retired so Murphy has someone with him almost all the time. These days he likes his rug in front of the fireplace, a spot in the bedroom, has one in the office, one in the hallway and on the ottoman. He does not use the ottoman much, just when he is in a really schmoozy mood. He uses his real bed when he wants to make sure he does not miss us when we go out in the backyard (garden). We have to walk right past him so it is easy for him to just tag right along.
Firstly - I have NO experience of puppies. Could you use a puppy pen (with an open crate inside if you want) ? 3.5 year old Coco is left in the with access to the hall and a spare bedroom in the afternoon, when I'm at work - but then he's not a destructive, chewing puppy.
We did not crate in the day time, but did use a puppy pen in the kitchen, with a cardboard box on it's side for a "den". The crate was in the bedroom with us at night. We also had a Pet gate accross the kitchen door so when Cooper was out we could still keep her in the kitchen. I think we had the gate for Tilly also, but I'm not sure.
My girl is 7 now and we abandoned the crate when she was around 2, but......we crated her for much longer that the above peeps. Due to work and school constraints. Probably 3-4 hours morning an hour break at lunch max then another 2 hours or so. She was great in her crate. Went in it happily. Always had a kong and expected it whilst we were getting ready to go off. Although we don't use her crate now she just loves going in it at my SILs house where they still have theirs up. I wouldn't advocate this long as a norm. But it's worth mentioning all dogs are different. Some like Lilly are absolutely fine (and have bladders like camels) others would howl the house down. I think you have to be cautious and play it by ear. I think we were lucky. Given the time over again I wou!d consider a dog walker or daycare but this just wasn't around when we first got Lilly. And Lilly is a calm and content girl.
My puppy goes in her crate about 3 hours a day then overnight, she sleeps in there throughout the day and sleeps in there overnight. But her breeders had her crated so she is used to it. It’s her safe place anyway from any noise and people and my kids can not get at her. She also goes in when we have the kids classes xx
