We adopted a dog!! and now have questions...

[jent]

After talking about getting a dog for ages and dragging our feet, we adopted a dog last weekend! :cheerleader1:

He is adorable (the rescue said lab mix, but he's small and looks like he may have some terrier in him) and so far has done really well adjusting to our house.

Our biggest question today is when to use the crate. He was already crate trained and we were happy to see he goes into it quite easily for car rides and at night. We didn't leave him alone for the first few days but today DH did so he and DD could run a quick errand (I'm at work, they're home with him). I told DH to just put him in the crate, since he's comfortable with it and it would reduce the chance of him "getting into anything". DH disagreed and just left him out in the house, with a Kong to keep him busy. He was fine when they got back in 30 minutes.

Anyway, what do guys do when you are out? Crate or no?

Thanks!!!

[daisysmom]

This is really dog and age dependent. We adopted a lab mix a few years ago and our SPCA guessed she was around 3. We had the crate there for sleeping but we never left her in it and she has never chewed anything other than her toys. We have since had ACL repair surgery on her twice and the surgeon thinks that she was only 3 at the time of the surgery b/c of the level of (no) arthritis in her joints... which would mean we adopted her when she was closer to 1. We also have had 2 labs since they were just weeks old. Our first lab Daisy was fine to be out of the crate all the time even when I left for 8 hours for work at 6 months. Our current puppy is 7 months and we leave her out of the crate for sometimes 30 minutes or so when we leave the house and she will often still find a rug pad to chew up.

So there really isn't a rule on it.

A dog who is used to the crate and is in a new environment should be given the option to find his/her crate/safe place, so I would keep it available with the door open. But keep leaving him out until he shows you he isn't ready yet. Dogs are generally happier getting to make the decision themselves.

[hillview]

Big fan of crate training at least until everyone is settled.

[jent]

Thanks! Forgot to say that he is about 1.5 years old.

He doesn't seem to be a big chewer. Also, he seems house trained- has not had trouble waiting to do his business until we go outside.

[SASM]

For the most part, we crate our dogs every time that we leave the house. This is all they know and they love their crate...it's their space.

About 6 months ago we started to let them sleep in our hardwood-floored bedroom hallway on their dog beds. They are gated off so they do not have access to the rest of the house. We also do this when we know we will be gone all day. Our dogs are not allowed on the furniture, etc and our 4yo pup still has issues soiling on occasion. She is whining and ringing the bell to go out as we "speak", even though she was JUST out. I wouldn't trust her with full reign of the house.

I think it is very individual to the family and dog. Crating (and gating) is all our dogs really know.

[elbenn]

I have a question to piggy back off OP's question. My dog is 18 months old. He is crate trained and sleeps in a crate every night, but otherwise just stays in the house while we are gone. He is very well behaved and doesn't chew anything. When we go on vacation, he sleeps in our room. He goes right to sleep and stays there all night, so he's no fuss at all. When we get back, he would prefer to continue not sleeping in his crate, but once he goes back in, he's fine with it. My question is, is there any obvious benefit to continuing to use the crate?

[SASM]

I have a question to piggy back off OP's question. My dog is 18 months old. He is crate trained and sleeps in a crate every night, but otherwise just stays in the house while we are gone. He is very well behaved and doesn't chew anything. When we go on vacation, he sleeps in our room. He goes right to sleep and stays there all night, so he's no fuss at all. When we get back, he would prefer to continue not sleeping in his crate, but once he goes back in, he's fine with it. My question is, is there any obvious benefit to continuing to use the crate?
For our dogs, it's their "comfort" place. We also crate them when there are visitors, contractors, new kids etc in the house. If you are referring to bedtime and you are okay with him sleeping in your room, keep him uncrated.

[zukeypur]

Our dogs are 8 and have always been in a crate together. They sleep there every night, and we take it with us whenever we travel. They actually get very nervous in the car if the crate is not there. They use it as an escape if our house is too loud and rowdy, or if they just want a quiet place to hide. Ours is in the laundry room. When we leave the house they go to the laundry room. We close the laundry room door, but leave the crate door open so that they have access to food and water.

[jent]

Thanks all! This is helpful. I get that it's dog dependent, so we will just have to figure out what works best for our guy.

Now for my next questions:

- Where to sleep at night? I know this is again very dog & family dependent, just curious what others do. We've kept his crate in our room since I didn't know what he'd do the first few nights. He's doing fine. I would prefer him out of the room b/c I'm a light sleeper though (I wake up when he shifts and his tags jingle. I remember others saying that their dog sleeps in their kids' room and we are considering that. DD would be thrilled (and she is not a light sleeper). Any pros/cons to this choice?

- What about food? The rescue was feeding him Iams so we stuck with that for now. The vet didn't give any specific advice. How did you decide what brand of food to buy?

[baymom]

Thanks all! This is helpful. I get that it's dog dependent, so we will just have to figure out what works best for our guy.

Now for my next questions:

- Where to sleep at night? I know this is again very dog & family dependent, just curious what others do. We've kept his crate in our room since I didn't know what he'd do the first few nights. He's doing fine. I would prefer him out of the room b/c I'm a light sleeper though (I wake up when he shifts and his tags jingle. I remember others saying that their dog sleeps in their kids' room and we are considering that. DD would be thrilled (and she is not a light sleeper). Any pros/cons to this choice?


Our crate is downstairs in the family room. It's a location that is in the thick of activity of our home. She sometimes goes in there on her own during the day if things are too loud/crazy for her, or if she doesn't want to be bothered. But, mainly, it's where she sleeps at night. Our thought process was that if we had the crate in one of the kids' rooms, she'd be unlikely to want to walk up there and find her 'safe place' if the rest of us were downstairs. Even when she does go into the crate during the day, the door is open and she's very much observing us, or trying to nap. She's such a people-person type of dog, that *for her* she'd never escape to it if she couldn't still sort of be around us, at the same time. I suppose we could buy a second crate for upstairs but this has worked for us. However, from experience we have learned that when we are away and take her with us (to either set of grandparents house), she has trouble sleeping in a new environment without being able to see us. So, there, we always put her crate in one of our bedrooms.

[SummerBaby]

Our dog, yellow lab, will be 2 in a couple weeks. We have two crates, one in our bedroom and one in the kitchen/family room. He is fine if left for a short time, and actually usually crates himself. It's his comfort spot. He really doesn't need to be crated at night, so I ordered him.a nice bed from Frontgate for our room. I'd like to put that crate away and have him sleep on the dog bed. He does like to sleep in our room. He doesnt sleep well if he's downstairs. We don't let him sleep in the kids' rooms because he eats stuffed animals and there would be a massacre, lol.

As for food, check dogfoodadvisor.com. We feed Fromm's and have been very happy with it. You can't switch all at once though. We switched out dog and you have to start out adding the new food a little at a time. Otherwise you risk diarrhea.

Good luck!

[twowhat?]

We started by leaving our dog in her crate with a Kong when we left the house. She did well, so a couple of months later we left the crate open and gave her access to only the room the crate was in (using baby gates). Again, she did well and we would often come home to find her resting in her crate. So then we increased the area of the house that she had access to until eventually she had access to the whole house. The one thing we never changed is that we always gave her a stuffed Kong before leaving the house, it let her know we would be gone, and was a positive association to us leaving. We also left her crate in the same place with door open for years since that was her "safe place". Eventually we got rid of the crate and replaced it with a regular dog bed. And now she has multiple dog beds strategically placed around the house but I digress...

Obviously every dog is different but ours did well with this transition.

It sounds like your rescue already did fine with access to the house for a short trip away!! :)

Our dog sleeps in our room, but I feel like that's one thing that you can set the rules on, and that is that. Most dogs will pretty easily adapt to the house rules. If your sleep would be disturbed, then by all means have your dog sleep in another room!

Food - our dog has a very sensitive stomach and we feed Canidae lamb and brown rice. She does very well on it. There are many high quality dog foods out there, the Costco brand is decent too! I would just try one and if it doesn't work, you can always slowly switch. We also supplement with dark green veggies, salmon skin, egg, raw chicken (backbone from a whole chicken that I butterfly before roasting), fruit. Basically bits of what we eat! If you feed dry kibble, the best piece of advice our vet gave is to add lots of water to the kibble if your dog isn't naturally a good water drinker. Dry kibble is so dehydrated that lots of dogs will eat it, not drink enough water on their own, and end up with kidney problems as they age. Our dog is a terrible water drinker so we add a TON to her kibble...it's really more of a soup LOL...and she's one of the healthiest dog our vet has seen at about 12-ish years old.