@amarekanne Our pup is close to 2 and is allowed to free roam while someone is home (working from home or upstairs in the shower, etc.) since we can generally keep an eye on him but we still crate him when we leave. Inappropriate chewing and regression in potty training is really common during adolescence which usually starts at 5-6 months old and goes until 2+ and we definitely experienced that. He started getting into stuff he never did before, having more accidents, etc. and we’ve found it easiest to manage the environment by crating him when we leave so he doesn’t get in mischief.
It really depends on the dog though. Some can be trusted unattended earlier and some later.
@amarekanne We just worked up to longer times. Started with just running to pick up food and worked our way up to 6-7 hours. I leave a box (he LOVES shredding cardboard) and a treat filled kong and aside from barking for a couple minutes when we leave he's done great. We started actively working on it around 6 months.
We didn't crate train but he's always in it when we get home, it's his man cave lol
@amarekanne My dog's a doodle. I'm comfortable leaving him alone at two years old. We started slowly when he was about one year old iirc, after he was house trained.
Initially we left him in just the kitchen (lino floor and nothing to get at) and then the hall, and then the lounge too.
My boy is a chewer, so we always left lots of toys on the floor for him. And a nice place to sleep.
@amarekanne Our golden doodle had some rough times in a crate (he'd get maybe a two hour stint every couple weeks or so as we go out for dinner or something). Maybe around 8months or so we started letting him out with no crate and while he still stresses, he just will whine and howl a bit but never does anything naughty.
@amarekanne We have a 1 year old springer, and we can never leave him alone (he's not destructive, just screams and screams, we've tried for up to an hour and he never relaxes) - good luck!
@testoffaith Lol, it takes coordination. He's ok in the car for a quick grocery shopping trip,otherwise my wife and I trade off, or we do it while he's on a walk, or in day care. We've had him for 10 months so we've managed, but the idea of leaving him alone in the house for 2 hours or so at a time sounds like a dream..
Oh, and we take him to restaurants, we just know every one of them in our area with nice outdoor seating now
@clarki Thanks! You, too. And like dogs, it’s just luck of the draw with kids. My first was super independent and could sit at a restaurant for a two-hour meal just happy as a clam. Second one, we just stopped trying after about nine months and waited until he was old enough to play on restaurant playgrounds so that’s where we’ve been eating mostly ever since. Then with the pandemic, we got a lot of take-out and ate at parks. So we were broken in.
@amarekanne Our Corgi is now 4.5 Month old. I WFM and she is just roaming the apartment while I work. She mostly stays in eyesight and never destroyed anything beside part of her bed. When she won't behave and I hear it I put her with me in the office and close the door. Office is puppy proof.
We let her free roam this Monday the first time while we left. She waited and slept in front of the door for 1 hour. I think we can trust her
@amarekanne I think it depends heavily on the dog. My first dog was not allowed to free roam until she was 3 years old- she is constantly looking for ways to get into mischief, so you think you’ve got everything put away and out of reach, but she finds a way to be naughty. The puppy I have now is 12 weeks old, and I can tell she will be allowed to free roam much sooner. When I am not paying attention to her, she busies herself playing alone with toys, not trying to do something to get my attention, like the older one. A bonus of having two is that the older one is playing with the puppy much of the time, and getting into much less mischief.
@amarekanne We only crated Hera for the first three or so weeks at night. After that, she slept without the pen door closed with us in the bedroom and had free range of the bedroom, living room kitchen, hallway and study. This was also around the same time when we started training her to be alone - she's never been crated other than at night for those first few weeks. Just make sure your pup can't get into anything they're not allowed, set up one or two cameras (I really like Barkio) and see how it goes. The first months we gave her lots to do (two blankets with hidden kibble, of which the first she was done with by the time we got out, an ear and a frozen kong) but now we just give her one thing and she also has access to coffe bean root
@amarekanne My Ace is 7 months old today (thanksgiving). I started letting him free roam when I shower about a month ago. The most I’ll leave him free in the house is when I go to get something from my car or anything that’s really fast. If I need to get a package from the office or something then I’ll put him on the balcony and let him watch me. Be careful with that though because one time I guess I was gone too long and he scratched a hole in the screen. He loves the balcony so I’m sure it was me being gone too long. I’m thinking of letting him out when I sleep but I sleep longer than he does so I know he’ll wake me up :/
@amarekanne Depends on the dog... they're all different. I recommend leaving lots of chewing activities: frozen kongs, frozen chicken wings, pizzle sticks, etc. Keep the space small at first, and gradually enlarge as you both work through your separation anxiety.
@amarekanne We have a 7 month old cavapoochon here. I'm at like 80% trust. She still gets into stuff and we've closed almost all of our doors but I also don't feel like I need to watch her like a hawk anymore. I've felt this way for about a month-ish?
@amarekanne I have a dachshund, she’ll be 1 in a couple weeks. Maybe 2 months ago we’d start to leave her out for quick errands (gone about 15 minutes) and we’d watch her through our blink camera. She’s always just lay down and wait for us to get back. We did that kind of irregularly until a couple weeks ago then every errand under an hour she’d be left out. Last night we left her out while we were at thanksgiving dinner (gone about 3 hours) and we’d check on her through the camera and she basically slept on the couch the whole time.
When I leave her, I give her a snack, either a kong or something else, I don’t make a big deal when I leave or come back, and I just make sure it’s relatively clean and doors are shut so she’s confined to the main area (living room + kitchen in an apartment). I make sure I put anything up or away that I don’t want her to have.
She’s also pee pad and outdoor potty trained so for periods longer than a hour or immediately after a meal, she gets a pee pad. She hardly ever has to use it but it’s there. She poops immediately after a meal so if we can’t wait to leave until after that, that’s the main reason we’ll leave a pad for her.
@amarekanne If we played/were in a dog park, he ate a bit before I leave and is already chill, and I leave kong and few hidden treats and chews around then the most mischief I expect is moved pillow or blanket as I'm too lazy to hide mine and of he's not too tired he actually needs anything he knows he shouldn't touch accessible. Otherwise I'd fear for furniture and walls with my 6 month old gsd mix. Longest I was out was once 5 hours, usually it's few minutes, few times a week and 2 hours up to twice a week for some shopping. He's doing great and made only one major mistake so far (destroying part of wall edge, which probably happened by chance and he got into it as he later tried to do it again right in front of me which I redirected and I'm gating that room every time I go out since then), not counting some torn pillow or paper I left behind, that's small and ofc my fault
@amarekanne We usually leave our dog in the foyer that is blocked off from the rest of the house. One morning, I forgot to block it off and through the camera, I found out she had gotten upstairs! She was alone there for about 1.5-2 hours and she was totally fine. She’s was about 4 months at that point. After that, we felt a bit more comfortable leaving her alone lol
Also, after she lost baby teeth, she became a lot less mouthy, so we felt more comfortable that she wouldn’t destroy our house with her biting.
@amarekanne Starting around 6 months, when we were confident she wasn't going to chew the furniture, we stopped crating and started closing the doors so she had free range of the living room instead. She can move around with her toys a bit and she's still away from the places where she could get into the most trouble (trying to get onto kitchen counters or chewing cables in the office).
