When did you feel comfortable leaving your dog unattended?

[drummergirl337]

@amarekanne Around 5-6 months we started leaving ours have free roam of the house with all hallway doors closed. He’s never destroyed anything or done anything naughty while we are gone.

 

[hoops122712]

@amarekanne 5.5 months i leave him unattended in the house when I go out sometimes. I try to mix it up for him. Most times he will nap in crate, sometimes i will let him roam the house while Im gone. He is now trained to not chew and destroy furniture and my stuff so I feel comfortable. Just need to get home in time to let him out or he will pee in the house if its longer than a couple hours.

 

[snarkler]

@amarekanne I had to begin allowing my pup free-roam while home alone when he was 6 months old, because he had discovered how to jump even the tallest gates and had major crate anxiety. I started out with like a few minutes at a time. At 8 months old he is fine to be he alone in the apartment for about 6 hours with a dog walker who comes midday (he only stays home 2x a week)

He has never been a destructive boy, but he did have major seperation anxiety that was worsened by being created or penned.

Allowing him free roam was a game changer.

 

[jamesonc]

@amarekanne Mine's 2 and I still don't give her free range of the house when we're not here unless it's

 

[thisguy00]

@amarekanne I've let my puppy kind of unattended while working from home since she was 3 months old, but I would hear what she was doing. She has never destroyed anything except tiny chew marks on the tv remote. I stopped crating her when I had to leave home for less than 2 hours when she was around 6-7 months old. I always give her something to chew or a frozen kong before leaving and I have cameras that I can look at to make sure she's ok. She mostly sleeps while I'm gone.

 

[andy316]

@amarekanne Around 5 months, we let him roam the house when we left.

 

[jesuslovesmel]

@amarekanne We don't use crate. First time when we left puppy when she was around 2-3months old for 1-2 hours, I set up old phone as camera and made a video call to look what happens. Nothing happened, she walked around a bit and just went to sleep. Since then we just increased away time slowly and so far no surprises happened when we got back home. She's happy when we arrive, but waits when we are ready to greet her. She's 10mo now and has stayed home alone up to 6 hours without problems.
We even left some treats on table as experiment - she didn't touch them until we arrived.

 

[imagebeastmarkbeast]

@amarekanne Pretty much was left with no other option because of work but I get/see what you’re sayin/askin. I think after a year of having him

 

[chrisw5977]

@amarekanne Starting to sleep uncrated some nights: 6 months. Consistently at 8 months

Free roam in the house while we're home: 1 year ish

Free roam while we're away for short periods: 1.5 years

Free roam while we're at work all day: 1.8 years (we worked from home until she was already 1.5)

Keep in mind that it's not all or nothing. It's not either crate or 100% freedom for 8 hours. You can extend the space your puppy gets or leave for shorter periods of time to start and see how that goes first. It's much less nerve wracking and you can find out if she's ready without much risk. If it feels like you're taking a huge leap of faith, you probably are. Cameras help too. My pup took a while to earn her freedom because she had a real hard time settling down. We also didn't want her chasing cats. She has basically never destroyed anything because we didn't give her freedom she wasn't ready for. Nowadays we rarely need the crate.

 

[abdulrahman1subih]

@amarekanne For me, it was around the 1.5 yr mark. I started out with setting up a camera and locked to a puppy proofed room with her toys (just used my laptop and used discord to call myself from my phone) and left her at 10 minutes then 30 minutes then and hour to a few hours, increasing as I got more confident that she would be okay before opening her up to more of the house. She's now 2yrs and has most of the house open to her when she has to be left alone

 

[lynn403]

@amarekanne At 8-9 weeks. We just left for like 5 minutes at the time and worked our way up.

 

[jeanniebeannie4christ]

@amarekanne My husky took 2 years before we started allowing him free roam of the house outside his crate when we weren't home. Now he's 4 and will sleep a solid 8 hours if we are not there. It really helps if you just do short 20min trips until you can build up to an 8 hour excursion. You mileage may vary, smaller/younger/older dogs tend not to be able to hold their bladder as long

 

[gorgor]

@amarekanne My golden retriever just turned a year and I still don’t trust him alone in the house. Damn dog eats everything. I do feel fine letting him roam free while I’m working upstairs but he’s so attached to me that he mostly stays in the same room anyway and just chews on his kong or shreds a new stuffed toy for me to clean up later.

 

[shadow7580]

@amarekanne Mine is 5 months and I let him free roam quite a bit while I'm working. I have an older dog too though so puppy takes his cue from him.

We had a pen with his crate inside it for him but he ate that, making his feelings about being cooped up very clear. Last night was his first night in the crate overnight (more to make sure my older dog, aka puppy's best friend) was left alone to sleep. It did not go well. Full on poo-splosion requiring a full crate/house/dog hose down at 5am...

The thing with puppies is you just have to try it to see if they're ready or not. Make sure the environment is safe, maybe set up a camera so you can monitor from afar, and just go for it. If they mess up, go back a step, but most of the time they'll be fine and will surprise you.

 

[dimples3130]

@amarekanne I’ve left mine unattended since she was a couple months- made sure anything that could hurt her was put away of course but she turned out great! 9 months now and has never once been destructive or gotten herself into any trouble. If anything I left her in her crate one time and she hurt herself- after that I decided not to do the crate thing which I know many might judge but she’s a good girl now. She is carrier trained for airplane trips and does well at the vet- I don’t find it necessary to crate her all the time when I’m gone or at night, I personally see her as a free spirited animal who wasn’t meant to be caged. Your pupper will be fine- nanny cams are always a good idea if it makes you anxious.

 

[yogapriya]

@amarekanne Our pup is a year and a half now, and we’ve left him semi free since… 10 months or so? It’s easy to close doors so he only has the living room/open kitchen/dining room. We also have puppy cams to watch him. He’s blissfully never been too bad of a chewer/eater of stuff he shouldn’t in the house (he saves that for outdoors ).

 

[recycler]

@amarekanne My dog is 2 years old now and we have just started to leave her out of her crate when we leave her home alone for short periods of time. It's going well so far!

 

[whisperinthewind]

@amarekanne 6months alone and crated. Still working towards the free roam out of crate. One year old and still eating the walls and base boards. I'm hoping to start a slow transition this coming weekend.

 

[jong62]

@amarekanne My dog was about nine months but first I started with him in one room with a gate up and he could see the kitchen. Once he proved he was good there and didn't destroy things and was happy we slowly gave him more access and he has had full access since he was about a year.

 

[lightnow23]

@amarekanne After she recovered from her spay surgery in her crate we got rid of the crate and introduced free roam and bed privileges!