Dog crate s/o: overnight

[nicolewi]

If you use a crate (travel, give dog a break, when you are out, etc), does your dog also sleep in the crate overnight? 

Curious about dogs over a year old, not puppies. 

[icedcoffee]

9 year old dog did until he herniated his disc last year and we were worried he couldn't get comfortable. He still goes in there voluntarily though.

1 year old dog still sleeps in there locked up.

My dogs shed a ton and also snore loud. They cannot sleep in our room. And the good thing about being crated is they can't see out the window to howl at random things.

[expectantsteelerfan]

No. After mine were reliably potty trained and past the puppy stage, we stopped crating them overnight, but we did crate them overnight to start with. Now they both sleep downstairs freely, and we put a gate up at the bottom of the stairs so they don't come upstairs and whine outside our doors/scratch on our doors to be let in to our bedrooms. They have dog beds on the floor in the living room, but they are also allowed on the furniture (we keep blankets over our couch that we remove when we have company and wash every week). When we come down in the morning, they might be in their dog bed, on the floor, or on the couch depending.

[circa1978]

Our dogs (18 months old and 5) do not sleep in their crates but we have had dogs who choose to. Our current dogs prefer to sleep with us in bed or on their dog beds but we had one in particular who would take herself into her crate to sleep - we left the door open - whenever she was tired. We crate at night until we are sure that it is safe for the dog to not be crated. Our current youngest convinced us super early - she ended up sleeping in our bed when she was around four months old. The older dog was about a year old and previous dogs were around that age or a little older. 

[CurlyQ284]

My dog is 2 and she sleeps in her crate most nights.

She is a very heavy leaner/snuggler. She lays really hard on me, and it's uncomfortable and I end up waking up 2-3x in the night to move her over so we switched to putting her back in the crate. She pouts about it.

I have googled "dog bassinets" more than a few times 🤣

[mich1]

Yes, both dogs are crated overnight, right before we go to bed. First one up takes them out each morning. With daylight savings time, neither of them were wanting to get up from their cozy nests in their crates.

Both dogs are over 1. Each has sufficient space to move around in the crates, with blankets and pillows. When we start turning out lights to go to bed, both ge5 up and start trotting towards their respective crates.

[mae0111]

Our dog (3) is no longer crated overnight at home or at our beach house. We do crate him when we go to MILs house. We have a crate that we leave there, it has his things in it, and he happily runs in there when it's time for bed. We used to crate him when we left MIL's house, but last time we were there, we just left the crate open and let him roam around the room... and when I ran back in because I forgot something, he was in the crate. So I guess he likes it in there.

[sdlaura]

We don’t have a dog currently, but when we did, he slept in his crate in our room with the door open.

[k3am]

Nope. Once he was reliable (potty and destructive tendencies), we let him sleep wherever he wants. He tends to start in bed with me, move to the hall when DH comes to bed, and relocates a few times. The freedom to take himself wherever he wants means we get much better sleep.

[loira]

Yes, she's nearly 3 and sleeps in her crate overnight. The only exception was when she had to wear the cone of shame after her spay.

[Gato]

We crated ours when she first joined us and needed a potty-training refresher. Now she sleeps at the foot of my side of the bed. I get the feeling she was neglected a lot in her early life and would not be happy crated in a different room. Probably an open crate right next to our bed, with all her snuggly stuff inside, would be okay for her, but then we'd have to move my reading chair by the window. I love that corner too much to give it to my dog!

[dearprudence]

We have the crate open and available all day and night. During the day he often goes in there to sleep (he's napping in there right now) but at night he prefers to spread his entire giant body on the couch. I think because he knows he can without having to share it with a human for several hours.

[cjcouple]

He is no longer in a crate overnight but when he was, my husband would let him stay out on couch for a long while (a few hours) before putting him back in.

I don't like to have him in there for more 5-6 hours during the day so the handful of time we had all day plans,we hired someone to just come, let him out for a while, potty, feed him and hang out for a couple hours.

ie. When we went to a Celtics game and left at 2pm. We had a friend come at 6-8 (paid them) then we got home at 12:40am. he did not go in the crate that night. DH stayed on couch ans he laid him him all night. he's a good boy.

[Susie]

Our first dog (2007-18) slept in a crate overnight for at least the first half of his life.  Eventually he gained bedroom privileges, but he had to have been at least 6-7 by then.  We never took down the crate, because we always used it in some shape/form.  We gave him night time freedom in our room earlier than freedom when we left the house.  I'm not sure we ever gave him daytime freedom while we were at work.  He was just too "inquisitive".

Second dog (2012-) slept in a crate overnight as a puppy but graduated to freedom at a very young age.  She's just a super chill dog in every way, not really representative of what I think of as "normal".  She does occasionally go into a crate for some peace or if she's scared (e.g. of thunder) but it's very limited and at her option.

Third dog (2023-) is still a puppy and sleeps in a crate overnight.  There is no timeline in mind to change this.

[verycontrary247]

We have 2 dogs

Ricky Bobby: a year old. Crated at mealtimes, overnight, and if we are gone for more than an hour. He hangs out in there voluntarily every day so I don't feel bad about it. He's an untrustworthy chewer when left alone.

Molly: 3 years old. Crated at mealtimes only. We adopted her when she was 2ish and crated her overnight for the first few months but she doesn't love it and would start whining at 5:45am because she wanted out. Once we discovered she is absolutely trustworthy out of her crate overnight we started leaving her out. She doesn't start whining until 7am now.

We feed both dogs in their crates because we regularly have foster dogs and I don't want to have any food related conflicts.

[tacokick]

2/3 do. The oldest/smallest sleeps with us. The other two are crated at night. Sometimes we leave the door to the crate open for the newest/middle one but she still sleeps in it.

ETA: I am not worried about them getting into things but I think if it was an emergency I’d want to know where they were so we could get out together.

[jobae1234]

Yup, my dog will be 2 soon and he is still crated overnight. A few weeks ago I left him out in the room with me and I woke up to him pacing and then peeing. I thought he was reliably housebroken (and I think he was trying to figure out what to do) but he just earned himself another year in the crate.

[starlily]

Our current dogs do sleep in their crate overnight, because we're still not 100% comfortable leaving them unsupervised (chewing & potty related).

Our previous dog was uncrated during the night during most of his adulthood and slept in a dog bed in our room until he was elderly. Then he started going to a different room in the house to pee during the night, so we started crating him overnight in our room because that way he'd alert us if he had to go.

[livinitup]

No, he sleeps in our room in a dog bed. He also spends most of his day in H’s office in a dog bed. He has access and uses his crate on/off through the day. and he always runs into it if he thinks we are leaving because of training but we rarely need to close it.

[mokes]

No, he sleeps in our room.

In our old house, we kept his crate in the laundry room. Whenever we'd go out, he'd be sleeping in his crate when we got home though. He loved his crate.

One day we moved it to another room (we were considering a second dog and wanted to test out where we might move his crate). I don't know if he got pissed or what, but he never used it again even after we put it back. I still feel bad and that was at least 5 years ago!

[smock]

Yep, our dog loved her crate and ended up sleeping in it overnight with the door open. We kept the crate in our bedroom and really never closed the door after she was a puppy, so it was more like a den.

[dochas]

Mine still does. He loves his crate and chooses to sleep in it. He will lay on the end of our bed for a while at night and then just get up and leave on his own. Or he'll fall asleep on the couch next to me and wake out of nowhere and go lay in the crate. BUT, we keep it locked and would put him in there anyway. He is a German Shepherd and would stare out the window and bark at every sound. he knows he's off duty in his crate and he needs the break. My husband and I also both get up at least once a night and the dog is awake every time and would want petting and kisses. I need my sleep and I pity any creature that costs me even one minute of it.

[mommin]

Yep. Our dog is about 7 years old and has slept in a crate since we got him from the pound at a year old. I assume he must have been in a crate previously because he knew exactly what to do when we got him one. He knows the drill and doesn’t seem to mind at all. Some nights, if we are up late, we will find him asleep in his cage with the door wide open. We got a larger crate than he needs so he has a lot of room for blankets and a foam bath mat in the bottom.

[bugandbibs]

Ours sleeps in a dog bed inside of an ex-pen. We lock her in whenever we leave the house or when we go to bed. She won’t leave us alone to sleep otherwise. She often chooses to lay in there during the day when the door is open- it’s her safe place away from the chaos that is our house.

[luckystar2]

Ours never could handle sleeping in the crate. She’d be awake barking at 5am or earlier. So I was sick of being woken up early. If she sleeps with us she sleeps until we get up. To make sure she stays out of trouble we just have a gate up to make sure she’d stay in our room if she happened to get down overnight.

I will say this ended up being problematic for us last year when she herniated a disc in her back and was temporarily paralyzed. She was on strict rest for 2 months. So figuring out sleeping arrangements was very problematic. She’s 12 now and in no way would she accept being in the crate overnight without keeping us awake. Now that she’s recovered she is still not allowed to jump up/off the bed so we keep her leashed on a harness hooked up to our bed headboard so she can’t jump off.

[DotAndBuzz]

2 dogs.

One (age 10) we can crate if needed for confinement - she doesn't like it, but she does settle. For sleeping, however, she's free range, and roams around the house during the night. Starts in our room, usually ends up on the couch (not allowed on beds).

The other one, age 3, will only do his crate for sleeping. He knows after we go out for the last time, he comes in, I say "night night" and he prances in there, happy as can be. No fussing at all when I close the door. We crate trained for sleep from day 1 when we got him as a puppy, and he's very happy in there. He'll also choose to lie down or sleep in there if I'm in my room, or shower, and he just wants to be in that room. Unfortunately, we haven't been able to translate that to crate training any *other* time, so...oops.

[MixedBerryJam]

My dog often slept in the crate by choice during the day and always was crated at night. But oddly (or not; she was my first and only dog) I was the only person who could crate her without objection. She'd bark for literal hours if either kid tried to crate her and I'd walk up 2 minutes later, tell her to get in, and she would be fine. RIP Zoet

[googled]

The big guy doesn’t because he’s a well-behaved gentleman. The other two sleep in a big crate together because if they’re allowed to sleep with us, they toss and turn and wake us up trying to get back under the covers.

They’re so used to it that one of my dogs actively cries and whines to be put to bed around 9, and when we tell him he can go upstairs to bed he sometimes spins in a circle. Lol

[pinkdutchtulips]

Mine has been crated overnight since night 1 (10 wks) and she's 2y now. 

We don't crate her during the day when we're not home as she's pad trained and only has access to hard floor areas. 

[ssmjlm]

Neither of my Aussies have been crate dogs. So for overnight they were out of the crate earlyish, but gated in our room. I don’t know when we’ll ditch the gate.

One Aussie loved the tile in our bathroom and our current one is either against the bed or in bed. She’s a snuggler.