why?

I crate Nadia when I leave home without her unless the pair of them are in the kennel outside. But if I take Z and not her, she is in her crate. Switch the two around where he is the one left at home, I can trust him fine to be uncrated, but getting out the door without a fight is hard to do.

Tomorrow I am taking Nadia to a Dock Diving Event and plan on leaving Z in the kennel outside where he can have fresh air, go potty, etc. Hoping he will stay quiet and not freak out but they do need to get used to this happening.

They are both 4 years old.

I started leaving Molly out for a few hours when she was around 9/10 months I think. She was allowed total freedom (other than the room where the cats food is!) by 12/13 months.

Grace has been out of her crate since she was about 6 months old. She just has an innate goodness in her lol.

Kira was at least 3 yo and still sleeps in a crate at night (her preference).

Vigo is just over 1.5 yo. He stays out for short periods during the day, but not while we are gone to work. He sleeps in his crate at night, because he wakes me up too early!

Siena was out of her crate at night only, about 8 months. When that didn't cause any issues, we started leaving her for short periods (1-2 hours after plenty of exercise). Then we just gradually extended it til she was about a year. She's fine in the crate, but she never gave any indication she was a chewer except a handful of times as a puppy --- so we were lucky there. One year old, no more crate (except special occasions). She also will sleep til noon if that's what we are doing (but we don't) and if we are up at 6, she's up with us.

Well, the conversation came up between my husband and I because he might be offered a full-time job after being a part-time contractor for 3 years. So, that would mean longer hours away from home (up to 10 hours). Oscar goes to day care 2x/week and I have a wonderful resource to come and take care of them half way through the day on days DH and/or I cannot. But, my thinking would be that if DH and I are working full-time to crate him in the AM, have the dog walker/sitter come 1/2 way through the day and then leave them out when she leaves for the afternoon.

Oscar has been out of the crate at night in the same area as Fanny since he was about 7 months without any problems and he has never been a chewer...just has his moments of spaz-boy pillow grabbing, but those are few and far between now. And since he goes in his crate on his own when he's tired throughout the day, I would definitely leave it accessible to him at all times (that and we still use it for management when people come over).

During the day, max was crated for a long time - he didn't make sound decisions alond

If the dog was behaving well in the house, I let them wean themselves out of the crate. Layla literally moved out of hers (I mean she took all of her belongings to another room and left an empty crate there) at around the age of 5 months. But my little Jasmine girl, well, she was finally allowed out (when home alone) at the age of 9, although she still loved her special place.