Perfect Puppy Training Book – Chapter 3 – Crate Training (Part 3)
Chapter 3 – Crate Training (Part 3)
When Can My Puppy Have More Freedom?
It may seem that your young puppy spends a lot of time in her crate, so it’s very important that you give her plenty of exercise and affection outside the crate each day. Don’t use the crate as a crutch. Your puppy needs supervised time with you outside her crate, especially if you have an active breed.
After your puppy has done well in her crate for a while, you may be tempted to give her more freedom in the house unsupervised, which is fine. If this happens too soon, though, you will find that you’ve made a serious mistake. Puppies can be destructive chewers all the way into adulthood—depending on your puppy’s breed, that could be as much as a year. If you let an adolescent puppy loose in your home, especially at about eight to nine months, when her back molars are coming in and she has a great need to chew, she could make quite a mess. More importantly, she could chew or eat something that will hurt her. So how do you know she’s ready?
Here are some signs:
- Your puppy should be completely done with her chewing stage. This means that she has not chewed something inappropriately for at least a couple weeks.
- Your puppy should be completely housetrained, meaning that she has not peed or pooped in the house—at all—in the same period of time.
This combination usually does not happen until your puppy is an adult dog. You must wait until she’s achieved these goals, or you will undo all your hard work.
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