When did your dog get free reign of the house? + housebreaking

For us the crating was for safety, not housetraining.  Both M&M were housetrained using their crates because it is so much faster and easier but the crating is for multiple reasons.

In our former home I feared a break-in when we weren't home and knew that, if that happened, Monroe would try to defend his home and probably be hurt or killed.  Crating him also prevented him from terrorizing the cats all day which was his favourite thing to do as a puppy.  In our new home, with only one cat left, he was not crated.

Morrison has had a lot of mild SA and enjoys counter surfing and destroying when left with free reign.  We found that he was much more comfy when we weren't home if he was in his "bed", however Monroe had to be there with him so he was crated as well.  Monroe doesn't mind at all since that is his hangout anyway.

We've recently started to let Morrison, and Monroe of course, have more free reign with a lot of baby gates up!  He has done OK so far.

For me, crating the younger dog or even an adult dog keeps them safe from harming themselves or eating/chewing something harmful when we can't be there to protect them.

Rory pottied in the house less then 10 times. She was a dream when it came to potty training.

Not the same with "chew training", LOL. She was a massive chewer. She was never crated but sectioned off in the kitchen or spare room for the first 7 months of her life. After that we lived with my mother for 3 months whom was home all day so Rory was rarely alone and by then had learned what was proper to chew.

After that her and I lived in a studio for a short time and by then she was 100% trustworthy.

I think what you are seeing a lot of times in regard to dogs not trusted out of their crates when home alone are dogs that were adopted/rescued as adults.  Two of my dogs were adopted from shelters.  Rex has just recently been allowed to sleep loose at night and he is left loose if we are gone.  He was not housebroken when I got him.  We have a cat and Rex was too pushy with the cat, so we never left him loose in the house. 

 Belle, my other adopted dog, who we have had since May, is housebroken now but is quite the chew monster and will not be trusted when we are not home for quite a while.  She has some separation anxiety and it is much better but not worth taking a chance.

My 9 year old JRT is housebroken and has been since puppyhood and is trusted loose at all times.  But he sleeps in his crate at night because he sneaks onto the bed.  All my dogs love their crates and Rex sleeps in his crate with the door open. 

Kenya has always had free reign, I got her when she was 3.5.  We got Coke at age 1.5 and he was initially crated when we were gone for safety and acclimating him to the house.  Getting an adult dog, you have to figure out whether they will destroy, if they have separation anxiety, etc.  Looking back I think we could have trusted him almost right away, but we weren't keen on letting him have his way with my cats or whether there would be a squabble with Kenya. 

I know a lot of people who use routine entire-life-of-the-dog crating instead of spending the time and effort to train the dog how to behave in the house. If I wanted a pet that I kept in a cage most of the time I'd get a hamster, not a dog.

Maddie and Zack don't have crates, they never have.  They have had free reign of the house since they were brought home.  They don't chew or make messes in the house.  They were very very easy to housetrain, I think maybe they had about 10 or so accidents between the two of them. 

Yes, I agree.  Dogs are supposed to be our companions not zoo animals.  Crates are wonderful training aids and they have certainly saved the lives of many dogs. 

 Ben was housetrained easily and done by about 12 weeks.  I work from home so he's never been "regularly" crated except to sleep, but was on occasion that I had to go out, though often I just gated him into the kitchen.  Last fall, when he was about 18 months old, I started letting him sleep loose, and when going out he was in the kitchen 90% of the time.  A few months ago I took his crate down because it wasn't used enough to justify the floor space it took up LOL.  He's loose all the time now with no issues. 

mudpuppy

I know a lot of people who use routine entire-life-of-the-dog crating instead of spending the time and effort to train the dog how to behave in the house. If I wanted a pet that I kept in a cage most of the time I'd get a hamster, not a dog.

X2! I was thinking the same thing but couldnt figure a way of putting it so nicely. While I disagree with crating WHEN its abused and over used I do see a lot of dogs who see it as their safe haven. However I hope to only have to use one for emergencies like health issues and recovery......hopefully if and when that day comes Rory wont spazz out in one.

Like most modern day doggy training tools you've gotta think.....how did we ever get along with out them? The answer is patience which unfortunately most people dont have =(

Winston was 7yrs already when we adopted him, but he stayed in his crate when we left for about a month. He doesn't get free reign of the house, but he stays downstairs in the living room with a baby gate so he can't go upstairs (we have lots of windows upstairs, so he'd bark at passersby all day).

 Dance is 17mths and is crated whenever we leave. She's a fantastic dog, who never gets into any trouble, even as a puppy, but I prefer to have her crated while I'm out. She adores her crate, so it's no big deal.

 Keira is just 8 months and is completely not trust worthy at all. She'll probably be crated until she's at least 3, if not longer.

 If I had it my way, all of the dogs would be crated for they're whole lives when we're out. I just feel it's safer for a number of reasons for them, and since they like their crates, why not.

And yes, all are 100% housebroken. Keira's been trustworthy since she was 5 months. Dance had all of maybe 3 accidents as a puppy, and was trustworthy at 4 months (I got her at 3 months). Winston came to us housebroken.

Most of my rescues have been trustworthy from the start - but most of them did not end up here for housebreaking/chewing/manners issues.  I've had a couple memorable ones, but I mostly get out of control aggressive types.

I do crate for safety when I'm gone because most of them are pretty nutty about livestock, cats, and whatnot.  Plus there's the dog aggressive dogs - I never leave them loose when I'm not supervising. 

Of my own, most of my dogs start sleeping loose and being trustworthy all the time around two.  Border Collies you have to worry more about chewing stuff and going out windows, than housebreaking and countersurfing. 

specifically:

Maggie:  about a year and a half old.  she was a holy terror for all that time and then overnight, practically, she morphed into a dog you could trust perfectly.  She was housebroken from day one.  I don't think she ever has had an accident, like ever.

Ben:  he was kept in a pen and never let out to potty, until he was about six months old, so he still is not officially housebroken (he'll be 13 in Feb).  He only goes out because I ask him to and keep him on a regular schedule.  But, he will wait to go outside now because it pleases me.  On the other hand, he chewed exactly one thing, ever, so on that point he is completely reliable.

Gus:  He came to us at six years old, after being an "outside dog" his whole life, 100% housetrained and completely reliable in the house.  We got him out of the crate at the airport and he's never been in one since, for any reason.

Zhi:  I had heard small dogs were notoriously difficult to housebreak so I followed the tips in my little pink book (Training the Little Dog) and have had very few problems.  She still has difficulty, like many little dogs, considering anything but the room she's in fair game for pottying if she's really got to go - but that doesn't happen often.

Ted:  We just let him out of the crate at two years old.  He was sort of your typical BC puppy, except none of the issues that came up lasted long because dealing with them is second nature now.  Not a brag, just part of working with a favorite breed for 15 years.

Lynn:  She came to us at four months old and apparently had been an "outside dog" her whole life - starved, neglected in respect to training and attention, sick.  She's been the best puppy I've EVER raised.  I've never had her in a crate for anything but physical necessity and the occasional training use (a few minutes in the crate for "time out";).  She's been houseclean since day one.  The worst thing about the parvo was that the accidents made her miserable - and she had a touchy tummy for a long while afterwards which also made her miserable.  Our bedroom door has a three inch gap under it where a previous owner had cut it to allow for deep pile carpeting.  One thing she did when she was sick was get as close to the door as possible and aim under the door!  But we have never had to keep her put up.

When I went home for the weekends from college, I stayed at BF's house and his parents crate their dogs, so Pirate learned to use a crate so that he could stay crated in the den with the others.

Now that my only roommate is my younger brother, Pirate is allowed free roam.

He was 'housebroken' pretty much when I adopted him. One of the signs he is going to have a seizure, actually, is that he'll have an accident inside. He'll pee inside, and he'll usually have a seizure within 12 hours.

I was VERY GLAD he was acclimated to a crate last summer, when he was at the ICU vet for a week and *had* to be crated. I think it made him much calmer about the whole process.

Maggie is 110% housetrained (she doesn't even have accidents when she's sick) and has free run of the house at all times.  She has confinement anxiety, so once we figured that out (about age 14 months - 3 mo post adoption), she's been loose at all times.  She does counter surf at times, so we're much better about keeping things cleaned up than we would be otherwise lol.

eta: she is fine in a kennel at an ICU facility with people around all the time, but she stresses *alot* in a regular run - we accept this as a risk of having such a dog.  We've tried *alot* of different crate training techniques and none have gotten us past 10 mins of calm crate behavior with no one in the room.

Ziva arrived at my house at 5.5mo and was tough to house train due to spending 3 months in a shelter.  She has just recently, at 17mo, been getting free run of the house for periods longer than 2 hours and has done well. She started sleeping loose at night (the point at which I felt she was housetrained) around 10 months of age.

Since I had never used a crate with previous dogs, I never thought to get one for Max.  He was reliably house trained/using the doggy door on his own within a week of adopting him and he was never super destructive.  I just made sure that there wasn't anything important within his reach if I had to leave him alone.  Within the year, I could leave shoes, socks or just about anything else (except my erasable pens) out and he never bothered anything. He really prefers his squeaky toys to "people" stuff.

Joyce