When can a puppy sleep outside of it's cage/crate?

Question

Basically I have a puppy that is now almost 5 months, not fully potty trained and I know she cant stay out overnight or alone by herself yet, but i want to know at what age will this be able to happen or does it all depend on the type of dog?

FYI..I don't mean for her to sleep OUTSIDE of the house, but thanks for the concern. Just out of the crate, and she is doing very well on the housetraining and soon will be good :). BTW she's a puggle (if breed has to do with it)

Answer 1

If you're properly crate training, then you'll find that the dog will WANT to sleep in it's crate, even when it's old enough to make it through the night. The dog will see the crate as it's den and it's "Safe haven". Mine go in there & sleep even if their doors are open (Which they are when we're home).

Answer 2

She's a dog, she can take care of herself. They are very resiliant. I live where dogs are wild and live outdoors always. So taking a very opposite example, puppies here are born in the bush, if they have a nice human they get a shelter built in the yard. Mom comes and goes and they all manage to survive just fine. I mean as long as they have a human. If they are born in the bush and stay wild, that's another story.
So anyways, the question is, where is she when she's outside the crate? Inside the house? Any predators? No? Any million dollar carpeting? No? Then let her out. What's the worse that could happen?!
Jee I know a hundred puppies that would love to be adopted to a nice house and a nice warm crate. If you're interested, let me know! We ship and provide vet shots.

Answer 3

I got two puppies about a year ago, and they were trained horribly. I don't know if you would have anything similar to this, but we have a back porch that has no stairs on it, so the dogs cannot get off. We just recently started letting them stay in the room with the door connecting to the porch and not in their crate. The door is a sliding glass door, so we got an easily installable doggie door that just slides right in between the door and the wall so they can go in and out during the night. Before they were fully potty trained, we just put the crate up to the doggie door so they could go in and out if they needed to, but could not make a mess in the house. If something similar to that doesn't work for you, I would say to keep her in her crate until she is fully potty trained and you feel that she won't run around and make noise or eat everything in sight.

Answer 4

I know its hard to train a puppy, but don't give up on her yet....keep trying with the potty training..5 months is not good to keep the dog outside and I bet there will be a lot of crying and/or barking and we don't want to upset the neighbors either. Are you home all day with the puppy? If you keep it in its crate during the day, you should probably be getting a dry cage by now and let him/her out as soon as you get home....keep trying, it will be worth it. My thought it, if you really want a dog, outside is not the place to keep it, why have it then ?? Dynabar

Answer 5

Basically your dog 'earns' the right to sleep out of the crate. If she can stay out all night with out chewing, going to the bathroom, or any other destructive behaviors then it's fine to sleep out of the crate. You should be using the crate anytime you can not supervise your puppy, unless she has proved to be able to act 'right' There are no set rules for this type of thing it's about you and your puppy. What's right for the two of you. If you feel comfortable leaving her out of her crate at night then go ahead.
With our dog, he can stay out at night if he's in our room (with the door shut) because he doesn't have accidents or chew things up. But If I'm taking a shower he is in a crate because he will chew on things and I can't supervise him. Make sense? Good luck and enjoy your puppy.

Answer 6

Excellent Question!!

Plan to use the crate until the puppy is ten or twelve months old, well past the chewing stage. You will not need to continue crating once your dog becomes an adult (and is trustworthy), but your dog will probably enjoy the continued use of the crate as its own special place. If you decide not to keep the crate, slowly wean your dog off it.

Crates are not just for puppies, they are also a valuable tool to help solve behavioral problems in adolescent and more mature dogs. Acclimatising older dogs is a lot harder and will require more patience. If you plan to travel a lot with your dog, it may well be worth continued use of the crate

http://www.canineconcepts.co.uk/ccp51/cc/dog-training/dog-crate.shtml


Good luck-i Hope this helps... check out the link for more about crates/cages!!

Answer 7

A properly crate trained dog will want to be in it's crate because it will be a place that they feel safe and secure. My puppy is four months old and when he's ready for bed, he goes to his crate and looks at me until I close the door, then he goes to sleep. =)

It doesn't really depend on an age or the type of dog. I would recommend that you leave your dog in the crate at night for his and your safety (and the safety of your belongings!). But if you really want to let her out at night, it will have to depend completely on your judgement of her trustworthiness while essentially alone in your house all night. If/when you do start allowing her out of the crate at night, at least start with confining her to a room (the bathroom maybe?) so that she transitions. Also, get her a bed that she can go to sleep on when she's out of the crate throughout the day and ask her to use it at night too.

Best of luck!

Answer 8

I once had an elderly lady for a friend. She had a wonderful little dog. A mix of some sort. She had the dog trained well and it behaved very well. Learn here https://tr.im/8mL4l

She kept an uncovered candy dish on her coffee table with candy in it. The dog was forbidden to eat the candy. When she was in the room observing the dog he did not even appear to notice the candy. One day while she was in her dinning room she happened to look in a mirror and could see her dog in the living room. He did not know he was being watched. For several minutes he was sitting in front of the candy bowl staring at the candy. Finally he reached in and took one. He placed it on the table and stared at it, he woofed at it. He stared some more, licked his chops and PUT IT BACK in the bowl and walked away. Did he want the candy, oh yeah. Did he eat it? Nope. They can be trained that well but most, I'll admit, are not trained that well. When I was a young boy, maybe 5 years old. We had a german shepherd. He was very well trained also. My mom could leave food unattended on the table, no problem. She would open the oven door and set a pan roast beef or roast chicken on the door to cool. No problem. He would not touch it, watched or not. But butter? Whole other story. You leave a stick of butter anywhere he could reach and it was gone. He was a large shepherd so there were not many places he could not reach. Really, I think the number of dogs trained to the point they will leave food alone when not being supervised is very small indeed.
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Now if we are talking obedience training, not food grubbing, that is a different story. Way back when I was first learning obedience training one of the final exercises was to put our dogs in a down/stay and not only leave the room but leave the building for 15 minutes. The only person that stayed was our trainer, not the owners. Most of the dogs in my class did not break their stay, which would be an automatic fail. I'm happy to report my dog was one of the ones that passed.

Answer 9

I think it all depends on your dog and how well it crate trains. I have 2 dogs. One of the dogs I got at 6 weeks old and is now 1 year old. He still sleeps in his crate. You can say "lets go to bed" and he will get his stuffed animal and get in his crate. He will always sleep in his crate because I don't think he needs to be able to roam freely through the house. I guess it is all up to the individual.

Answer 10

Why do you want her out of her crate? Dog are denning creatures and they feel sucure in their crate ,as long as you don't use it for punishment. The crate is the safest place for your dog. She considers it her den a place to go and relax. it's also helps with houset raining and if you ever have to leave her somewhere she will be happy that her crate comes along.