We have a 3 year old Pointer Lab mix, her name is Cinnamon. She stays outside during the day. We live in Colorado and have pretty mild weather. She has her choice of three houses in our yard. She has her wood doghouse with a blanket, a crate outside, and a cozy crate in our garage that she has access to through a doggie door. We tried to crate train her when we adoped her and she had problems with it. We tried putting her in her crate while we were at home and all she did was cry and whine. We then tried to put her in it when we left for an hour, well that result was not pretty, she broke out, and ate all our chinese food that was too warm to refridgerate. I think that was our fault, she smelled it and couldn't resist. We do bring her in when we are home. She is only alone for about 6 hours. We have a huge backyard with lots of fun stuff. Her favorite thing to do is sleep on the trampoline! She also has a lab friend next door that she loves to rub noses with under the fence. We have never had a problem with her barking, in fact, our neighbor didn't know we had a dog until he looked over the fence one day.