Hi y'all! Sorry we haven't been around much lately Malone is doing well, and in the past year has mellowed out sooo much! He really is the best dog, ever, and his loyalty is really coming out lately.

Anyway, we crate-trained him when he was a puppy because he was soooo nawteee everytime we left him by himself, chewing up furniture, papers etc etc etcetera!

Last summer, we tried to un-crate train him, and he did really good for like 4-5 weeks until we came home and found that he had gotten into the closet and my stash of gift bags (nearly 100 of them). Yea, fun times. So we decided he wasn't ready for it, and re-crated him when we went out. (By the way that is the ONLY time he is in his crate is when we leave...he likes it in there and willingly goes in there and we don't have any issues). And a time or two in the past he has had a touch of separation anxiety.

However, I think its time to try again and wondering if anybody had tips or pointers? In a few weeks we are starting construction on the room his crate is in so it really would be convenient to have uncrate trained him, but I don't want to hurry it if the process is going to take longer than that. Do you think I should leave well enough alone and leave him crated?

Thanks for any insight you can give.