Hi all,we were thinking of removing Isla crate but not sure if this would be a good idea or not. Isla is now18 months old,she has a bed in the kitchen,lounge and our bedroom as well as her crate in our bedroom with a bed in. She uses the kitchen and lounge one during the day whichever room I'm in and the bedroom bed and crate at night, moving between crate and bed during the night. We leave her in her crate when we go out but with the door open. We only close the crate door if she has been naughty or over excited to calm her down,then let her out. Just wanted advice from everyone. Thanks
I don't like crates and very rarely shut the door on Loki's crate from the age of about 7 months. I was quite shocked though, when my partner got rid of the crate while I was out at work when Loki was about 18 months old. I expected there would be times when I would miss it but actually this hasn't been the case and not having the massive eyesore in the kitchen has been great.
Advice on de-crating differs depending upon a few factors to do with your own dog, like how destructive when they are when out of it and how much they like sleeping in it! But you can find some general rules of thumb here: https://www.thelabradorsite.com/puppy-is-destructive/
I do know some people who get rid of dog crate once their dog is about to turn one, but that is not how mine works. For me, it atleast takes two years for me to get rid of the crate. Whenever I go out I make sure that somebody is at home to look after my Labrador Retriever since I am not a fan leaving them in a long period of time inside the cage.
This is interesting, as my pups love their crates and will miss them when they go (they're only 9 months old and choose to sleep in them often, day and night). We lock them in over night, but otherwise in the last few weeks have left the door open if we go out without them (rare and never for long) and the destruction has been minor, and can live with it whilst they learn. However, as I have two, the crates take up a lot of room, and I had to move my sofa out of the kitchen, so other than the dining table there's nowhere to sit, which isn't ideal (we spend a lot of time in the kitchen), so I'm quite looking forward to the day they can go. I was thinking at age one to start leaving the door open over night (perhaps returning to going down once in the middle of the night to check on them), transitioning gradually to moving them out altogether.
We didn't actually get rid of Coopers Crate until she was 4 yrs but we quit crating her at about 5 months. After that the crate went into the kitchen, and she would go in some times but we never closed the door. It was a large wire crate with a blanket over it so it was fairly dark inside. I was a little concerned that she would miss it when we remodeled the kitchen and put the crate in storage, but she only seemed a little bothered for a couple of days. Our dogs have always slept in the bedroom with us, and have a dog door to the back yard, so once they were reliable, we did not need the crate for training.
Hi,we did decide to put Isla crate away and it has been fine. The only time i missed it was if she was over excited and her behaviour became naughty,we didn't have anywhere to place her to calm down.
