When to leave crate open at night?

[Rusty Hills Farm]

I have always used the crate for the whole first year. They even eat in it. I don't start leaving the crate door open at mealtimes until they are well into their obedience work--preferably all the way through the basics and starting on some early arm work. I need to be able to take the bone/food out of their mouths and hand it to someone else and control the situation without fuss. At this point I start to feel comfortable that I can stop ANYTHING with just my voice. It is important to remember that Dobies and GSDs are VERY Velcro-type dogs and can be quite territorial over THEIR person. Especially the males. And since Dobies especially will sleep in bed with me unless crated, the last thing I want is to wake up to a doggie "dispute" in the middle of the night over who gets to sleep next to me and whether or not my SO is even allowed to stay in the bed!! So keep using the crate until the possibility of those kinds of incidents are WAY gone and cured.

Rusty

 

[Crazyland]

lol We used to heft them up and weight them too. Not any more, either the vet or petsmart to get a quick check.

We still use the crates for the girls. I have a kennel outside under the carport if I have to pen the boys up. And I have their metal crates folded up still just incase something pops up and I have to use them inside.

But I did not let them roam until they were over a year and a half. It does depend on the dog as some can never be trusted and then you have a few who go backwards in training.

 

[Skyesrocket]

My sister in law has three dogs. When she leaves the house she crates them in an attached garage. She was robbed last year. They looked in the garage window and saw the dogs were crated and went in through that way.

 

[gritsar]

Quote:
Oh my! Jax is only crated when we go somewhere and at night. We stopped putting him in his crate at our mealtimes because when he sees us about to sit down to eat, he goes and lays down in the living room.
Someone coming to rob us would have no way of looking in to see that he's in his crate. All they can do is hear that bark and it's a strong one.
He's already pretty territorial about HIS yard, but that's okay by us.

 

[taraann81]

I have stupid dogs(or smart) they're bullmastiffs not the mental giants of the dog world by any means. But I stopped closing the oors to their crates when they were about 7 months or so.

BUT they were also trained that an open crate door doesn't mean come out. When they were little puppies I'd crate them and then open the crate, everytime they would attempt to come out I would close the door and reopen it immediately. They aren't allowed out until I give a realease word, ours is "lets go". Now at ages 6 years, 4 years and 2 years I say "kennel up" at night, they run to their crates and don't come out until I say"Lets go" in the morning.

I hope that if someone broke in they would breach the invisible barrier but I doubt it! But then again my voted "best natural guard dog without training breed" doesn''t even bark when strangers arrive.

I guess I can thank that on my rigorous socialization(which I never regret, I like my dogs to be so docile that a starngers 1 yr old could take a steak out of their mouths, I try to avoid this but it happened once(just the bone)!

 

[mandelyn]

Depends on the dog really. Out of all the dogs I've ever had, 9 months to a year old was about when I could remove the door. I have crates that come apart, so I can just pop the door off when they're trust worthy.

The trend I've seen in rescued older pups and pups I've raised is that if chewing and potty accidents are an issue after 6 months of age, the crate door will be on over a year, possibly even to two years. But with dogs that don't have issues, the door can come off right around a year old, or earlier, depending.

 

[Dar]

When we had our large dog, 100+lbs she would lean on the side of the wire crate and pop the lock and the door will pop open. She was in a wire crate that the front and back opened, we had to use hose clamps on the one end that she did not use and we used bungee cords on the door she used, when she decided to start chewing on the cords we then just confined her to the back hall between a baby gate and a door to the living room, we were lucky she was out of the stage of eating walls and baseboards by then