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

AuroraLove

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 =(

Not really. The answer is that back before people started using crates, problem chewers were banished to the outside, or they went on that one way trip to "a farm in the country."

 my dogs really never get free 'reign' of the house - the only ones I trust 100% is Sheba & Akyra.  Although Bella hasn't had an accident in a long time. I think it's mostly my paranoia about new carpet in the living room. I'm detrmined to keep it clean!! lol. If they're inside they're sectioned off to one or two rooms.

I think Amber is the only one that gets crated but she loves it & she only stays in there when we leave & we're dog sitting my best friend's dogs - amber stays in the house when they're over cuz she's the 'little' dog.

Otherwise they're all pretty good at notifying us that they need to go out & go potty. Sheba just gets as close to your face as possible & pants really loud or squeaks. Akyra does a drawl - whine sound.  Amber & bella just go out when the other two go out. if one has to go they all should go out & go.  :):)

Sheba was housebroken when I got her, akyra was house broken by the time she was a year old, I would say Bella was housebroken by 11-12 months, Amber I have no idea - she had two accidents since she's gotten here.

I posted in one of the previous threads, but I'll add some housebreaking info to this one.  Harry was a tough little cookie to housebreak.  I attribute it to him being in a shelter before we got him, where housebreaking isn't a concern.  We got him at 3 months old, and began housebreaking and crate training immediately, but I guess he was about 7 months old before I considered him truly housebroken.  He starting getting it, probably around 4 months, asking to go outside, etc, but would still have accidents every now and then. 

So, he was crated anytime we were not home up until around 7 months, to prevent accidents in the house, and he's mostly lab, so also because of concern about him chewing.  About that time we began "training" him to be out in the house alone, beginning with small trips (10-20 mins) and gradually moving up.  He's out of the chewy phase, and we spent lots and lots of time teaching him what he can and absolutely cannot chew on.

Just last week we left him for the longest time, 4 hours, without incident.  I was a very proud mama!  As you can see by the ticker below, he is 10 months old now (Happy 10-month birfday, Harry!!!!).

Due to the floorplan of our house, we can't confine him to small area or specific rooms, unless we were to close him a bedroom, and I worry he'd destroy a door pawing at it, etc.  So, he gets the whole downstairs when we leave.  All bedroom/bathroom doors are closed, and all items he might possibly consider exploring are put away.  So, I feel pretty good about not using the crate anymore, which, btw, he now can't stand.  Won't even go in it unless it's to pull out a blanket to play with, lol.  It's still up in the kitchen, but I might take it down soon.  I haven't yet, juuuuust in case....

I never heard about crating until I started to come here.

Thor was confined in the office's bathroom, when he came to the house (22 days) He was such a tiny little thing I was afraid the cats will kill him LOL The bathroom door was open and I was working 2 feet away. It was great for the cats to get used to Thor and he was pretty much sleeping all the time. Until Thor was 5 months old, he was tied under the table or in his bathroom and then he was free to do wathever he wanted. At 5 months he hold his pee until I left him out and since then he has being great. Last year we bought his kennel to prepare him for the airplane travel. He loves it!! And he sleeps inside at night with a toy. I won't put it away, because is so helpful when somebody comes (natural gas guy) and ask to hold the dog.

I have the feeling that Thor likes his kennel also, because he always saw the cats sleeping in theirs every time they wanted and now he has his own place only for him. When we go out he pretty much crates himself.

I got Apollo March, 2007. He's roughly 5 years old. We crated him once, for 45 minutes... He went in the crate without any problems and lied down, while we were walking out to our car I heard some rustling around in our condo. I ignored it, and when we came home the crated was iniliated and Apollo was laying on the couch. We never crated him again. He has never pottied in the house. He did have s/a for a couple months in the begining, but with the help of my parents dog-sitting Apollo when we had to go out, and then working up to leaving him alone, he's been fine. I've been able to leave him as long as I want without any problems for a long time now.

 Ari is a chewer, and while she has made leaps and bounds in associating what is appropiate to chew and what is not, she's not trust worthy for long stretches of time alone, outside of a crate. 

Ari typically comes to work with me, and if it's just me in my office she spends about 50-50 time inside and just confined in my office.  If my officemate is in (I share an office two days a week), then she's crated. 

At home she is crated at night, in fact once we tell her it's time to go "upstairs", if she's tired she just heads for her crate, plops down and crashes.  When I have her portable crate setup in the living room (rarely as I just tend to leave it at work), I leave the door open and she'll often go in there to chill out.  

Otherwise, when we are home she is baby gated in the living room/dining room area with us.  She's trustworthy to be left for small stretches of time if she's not in puppy zoomy mode (by small stretches, 10-15 minutes).  

Do I want her to always have to be in a crate if not supervised?  No, but I do not forsee it will be anytime soon before she is reliable not to chew something inappropiate.  Ari likes to create her own version of fun, and that usually involves something she's not supposed to do!  I am not worried about accidents.  The only ones she's had in a long time were when she was sick (she did tell me just couldn't hold it in poor girl) and once when I went hunting for my shoes for too long after she told me she needed to go and she had an accident.  Both of those incidents were not her fault!  Otherwise she's very good at letting us know now, which is great.  Given her breed's propensity to mature quite slowly, I wasn't sure what to expect with potty training.  

Jazzy is 3 years old, completely housetrained of course,  and is never confined to her crate. She stays in my daughter's bedroom during the day when no one is home and sleeps on the bed, or in her crate which is open all the time.

Lacie is almost 2 yrs. old and has free reign. 

Rex is also almost 2 years old and also has free reign.

Keisha is almost 2 years old and is confined to a crate during the day because she's our wild-child who will jump on the cupboards and chew anything in site (including doors, chair legs, etc).  Not sure if she'll ever be let free to roam when not supervised.

Zoe is 8 months old and in a crate when we aren't around.  She never messes in her crate but if left out she will pee whenever the urge hits.

Kaiser has not been in a crate since 6 months of age. He was house trained by approx. 10 weeks. 

Wyatt was house trained at about 4 mos. I have just in the past month or so been letting him stay out of his crate when i'm gone. He has eaten a hole in my carpet, ate a kashi bar, and entire pack of gum, tried to eat my birth control pills, ate an entire box of chocolate donuts, and attempted to eat a nail file (and i'm sure there's more!). He has the biggest crate dog.com sells, and he doesn't mind staying in it, but i'm sure he'd rather be lying on the bed. I do, however, close him up in my room. He gets into the garbage and jumps on the counter if he's out alone. Kaiser can have free roam of the house--if the bathroom doors are shut because he drinks out of the toilet. 

so, i'm thinking of folding up the crate and putting it in the garage... 

boomer was house broken at about 5months not sure just one day he started asking to go out and sense then hasnt pottied in the house. for the most part he lives out side his crate in and out of the house when ever he wants or when hes not using his house manners. ie barking and wont stop he is put out till he stops barking and asks to come back in, if hes hyper and harrasing the other animels or people. although he sleeps in his crate hes not put in it till about 11pm when i go to bed. we have started putting him outside while we are gone because he gets bored and chews things up hes not suppose to such as the couch and anything in doggy reach. normally i would pick up everything that was doggy reach but i live in a house with 8 people right now and only two of us stick to the plans of what the dog is aloud to do and isnt aloud to do. once me and my bf move out boomer will make a big turn around on that though because me and bf are on the same page with the dog and bf does just what i tell him to do when it comes to the dog.. i fear some times though that boomer will never be 100% trusted not to chew things up will see hes still young

I'm always home, so CoCo was never really confined even when she was being housebroken.  However, she always had a crate...

After her spay, for the first time ever, she went in there by herself and went to sleep... That's when I realized that even though there was no real need for a crate...she always viewed it as "hers."  I guess the natural "den" instinct is very real.

Now that she is 100% house broken, since it's not my house (I live with my parents.) I used to just block access to her from the upstairs as that's where the rest of my family lived...but my parents really REALLY fell in love with her... and one day when we were all going somewhere, he just told her to leave her be... I think she was 8 months old.

She has 100% free acess to the house since then.... she still has her crate though... and uses it whenever she wants...which is pretty much every night... after she snuggles with me for a bit, she'll go in there and go to sleep.

 About a month after getting him. I had him gated in the kitchen with his dog bed and toys when I was gone, one day I came home to see he knocked the gate down and the apartment looked just as I left it, nothing chewed and no accidents so I felt comfortable giving him free reign. He picked up the potty training very fast, I assume he was trained with whomever had him before me.  After adjusting  and getting into the routine, he very very rarely has an accident.  I trust him when I'm gone, except when it comes to the trash because if I don't put it away he gets into it every time. It usually dawns on me when I'm on the way home, "Oh crap I forgot to put the trash away!"

LOL - Oh Wyatt, you tried to eat your mommy's birth control pills? That's hilarious, don't you know what could happen if she doesn't take those?? ROFL - Thor always follows me when the cell-alarm sounds to take the pills and looks carefully how I take them!!! It's like "he knows"

 After "The Incedent" the dogs no long have full access to the house.  Its not so much them, but I keep the kitchen gated off 'for' them.  So that they have a place where they don't have to worry about Kali.  I give them alot of supervised time when they can go wherever, but when I can't be right there, they go in the kitchen where they can get away from Kali if they want to.  The majority of their time is spent at the gate watching her though.  I don't worry as much about Onyx, but I don't leave her with Kali alone either.  When we go out they stay in the kitchen.  Its just habit I guess.  At night the still sleep in their crates.  They're fine when they do sleep out of them, but occasionally thing its time to plat at 3am so most of the time they go to bed in crates.