How much freedom can a 1 year old lab handle?

[LuckiLab03]

(I was going to put this in the "Seinfeld was wrong.." thread but I thought it would be better if I just created a new thread so I could get more opinions.)

Riley still isn't allowed to be out of her crate when we are gone (but I persuaded mom to leave her out while we went to church on saturday. she greeted us at the door with nothing destoyed - and another time, we came back and she wouldn't even get out of her bed she was so tired - which is unusual for her), she also can't sleep out of the crate at night. I know my dogs pretty well, I can predict exactly what they are going to do next just by the look in their eyes.

I've told mom that she won't do anything while we are gone except sleep. She only puts on a show when we are home because she wants an audience and attention, whether positive or negative. I should put out a tape recorder to, but she has a bunch of sleeping spots so it'd be hard to put it somewhere. It would be pointless though because we too, would have an hour or whatever, of nothing.

1 year old (and 6 days!) Is that too young to leave her out? I know it depends on how they act and all, but 1 year old sounds reasonable to me. She stays downstairs too, and is only allowed in the backpart of the house. Plus the house is pretty puppyproof, the only thing she's done is chew a corner of the couch when she thought my dad was "watching her" (but he wasn't). What do you guys think?

Am I jumping too fast into giving her a little freedom?

[finn's mom]

I think it differs for each dog. I am okay with leaving Finn out of his crate, but, only for a couple hours. And, even then, he doesn't have 100% freedom. I will leave him in my room with the door closed, and, will try my best to puppy proof it (with Finn, that mostly means no food anywhere, no papers, no shoes, that kind of thing). I know I've been told it's not recommended to leave a puppy alone outside of the crate, and, for a lab, that could mean a three year old. I am still not comfortable leaving Finn out of his crate for very long. The couple times I've done it have only been because his crate is still in my car from the trip to Texas. :) I'd say do it in increments to start with, then, just work your way up. Even if that means, 100% freedom in six months or a year. Work your way from fifteen minutes every day for a week, then adding fifteen minutes each new week or something like that. I personally wouldn't trust my lab, yet, but, it could be just Finn!

[ParNone]

Hi luckilab!

I started off taking baby steps with mine. First, is being able to go all night without being crated. Then on days, when I knew I could reliably be back home for lunch within a couple of hours, I'd leave'em out in just the bedroom. Making sure anything really valuable was up out of their reach. As they succeeded, I'd increase the duration and worry less about what I'd leave laying around. I would probably give them more access to the rest of the house too, but I know they like to bark at people walking by on the sidewalk. So they still just stay in my bedroom. Plenty of room in there, so I don't think they're suffering any.

If there had been any failures, then I would have taken a step backwards with them to a successful point and then slowly tried to build up again towards more freedom.

Par...

[anna_66]

I agree, I think it differes for each dog.

Bon is 9 months old and I still crate him when I leave. Now there has been a couple occassions when we left him for 15-20 minutes alone but that's it.
He has free roam of the house when he's in and free roam all night long so I don't "think" he would tear anything up, but he's such a big guy and I don't fully trust him yet. I'd hate to come home and have my couch or chair destroyed;)

[Kfamr]

I think she'd be fine, but taking baby steps would always be best.


Kiara gets to stay in my room, while the other 2 get to have the rest of the house.
It'll always be like that because I don't trust Nala and Kiara alone together, they just like to play way too much.

[ginagt]

I think it depends on the dog. I have a 8 month old Golden Retriever that I would not leave out because she has proven that she can't be trusted (steals things and chews them up).
My parents have an 8 year old beagle, who proved the other day she still can't be trusted outside of her crate when no one is around by jumping up on the chair and stealing birthday cake when everyone was outside saying goodbye to the guests. So it just depends on your dog. I would do like the others suggest and give a little freedom at a time. Good luck.

[LuckiLab03]

I think night would be the best time to do "baby steps" because she's tired anyway. She konks out at 10:30. Usually I don't go to bed until 3 or so, just because I've got in the habit doing hw until then and sometimes I go down to see her. I went down last night and went in her cage with her :p despite how tired she was, she crawled up to me longways and went to sleep by myself doing that "sleep mouth" thing (keep licking their lips and positioning their tongue). I was thinking about leaving her crate door open because my brother is up at 6:30, at few hours later.

[K9soul]

I'd do the baby steps, as others advised, such as keeping her in one doggie-proofed room with her crate inside it and opened. I also agree with it depending on the dog. RB Cody tended to get into stuff, especially FOOD items, off and on all his life. He figured out how to open a drawer where we kept a bag of potatoes once. He once raided my purse while I slept because there were cough drops in there. He figured out how to get into a lidded trash can. That collie was Houdini when it came to food. Willie, on the other hand was not all that destructive, nor was he a big problem-solver the way Cody was.

Tommy I kept gated in the hallway with access to two dog-proofed rooms up until he was around 3. If there was a sock, dish towel, cloth shoe, cushion, blanket, etc. to be found, he'd have it pulled back to his dog bed and partially chewed before you realized it was missing. He still snatches dish towels from the kitchen counters (he's so tall, he can reach them without really jumping up).

Tasha is the type to be very careful of, however. She would lull us into a sense of security that she was over her chewing stage and not getting into things, being good for days and even weeks at a time.. only to one day come home and find the sofa cushions pulled down off the couch and half the stuffing out all over the floor, or a table and/or chair leg gnawed down to a splintered stick, or the comforter off the bed with large holes and stuffing all over (de-stuffing was one of her favorites). It always came as such a surprise because she had been so good for so long, and always seemed to be something BIG and EXPENSIVE. I would say that she was completely over her destructiveness by around age 2, except perhaps for anything stuffed that was laying on the floor ;)

Those are my experiences. Sorry to be so lengthy! :)

[LuckiLab03]

Blocking off the area to the family room would work, just to keep her in the kitchen.. but it's an almost 10 foot stretch from the bottom of the stairs to the other wall. When she was a baby we had a piece of a wardrobe box to block it off but she figured out how to launch off the steps and over it.

We COULD use our kitchen chairs though and put pillows under the seat so she can't squeeze through..

[mruffruff]

I have a 12 year old that still is confined to part of the house when I'm gone. He likes to water floor plants and one particular livingroom chair.

I constructed wooden gates for nearly every doorway in my house. One is 6 feet wide. They have been up for many years. I like knowing the dogs are safe, and my house isn't getting torn up. They are cheap and easy to make.

Mary