Our dog is 4. If the house is totally picked up and this dog proofed we can. If not, he will find anything to chew I think just out of spite for being left alone! He does better when locked in a bedroom. When we are home he chews nothing. Zero mischief. I would start with small amounts of time to see how he does and minimize the damage he can cause.

We got a puppy when we already had a 3 year old dog. He was about 5 months old when we brought him home. He had multiple major freakouts in the crate due to not being right next to his (uncrated) sister, no way in hell was the 3 year old going to go into a crate nor gated area. So we just went with it and it’s been fine. The puppy just loves being with the older dog and they just sleep. We close the doors to the bedroom and are never gone longer than a few hours and the puppy, now 7 months, has not done anything too destructive or had an accident.

We did not use a crate, we blocked off our kitchen and that was his space when we were out. He was not allowed to be left unattended in the entire house, until he was a little over a year old. At that time we trusted that he would not chew everything in sight or get destructive. Like another poster mentioned, we started leaving him alone in small increments and slowly increased the time.

We have an almost 6 month old puppy and he's housetrained, but I don't envision leaving him free for a looooong time. Losing puppy teeth so currently in a major chewing stage.

But PP's are correct that you want to start with much shorter periods of time before trying an entire workday. Will never forget my coworker who returned home one night, only to find that his two young labs had removed the stuffing from his sofa....

For us it took about 2 years - around that age he became a much more chill dog and we were positive he understood he understand that anything not in his toy basket was off limits for putting in his mouth. No need to rush it, as an adult he still loves his crate and will choose to hang out there when he wants privacy.

There are two things you do to see if your dog is house safe. Increase (alone) time. Increase space. You do not do both at once. So, you could say, leave him in a dog proofed room, for the time you walk down to the mailbox and come back. Next time, you'd walk a block and come back. Next time, you'd go to the post office and come back. Next time, you'd do the groceries, and come back. If that goes well, you expand space. Leave him in a larger space - say, the upstairs, with all doors closed except to one bedroom and the hallway, then two bedrooms open, and so on, until he can be safe upstairs, and then start with downstairs.

Generally speaking, leaving the dog alone for an hour or so gives you a fairly good idea of how they're likely to do. Most 7 month old dogs are not ready for being left with unlimited freedom for a work day.

helpful advice, thank you.

Anonymous wrote:When we thought we could trust our puppy out of the crate, we fenced him and his crate off in a slightly larger area that was easy to clean. If he did well there for several weeks, we would enlarge the area. Then after several weeks we'd include more of the house. After many cycles at this rate, it was 1 1/2 before he had access to the bedrooms. This was the place that worked for him, other dogs may be quicker or slower.

* place that worked for him

When we thought we could trust our puppy out of the crate, we fenced him and his crate off in a slightly larger area that was easy to clean. If he did well there for several weeks, we would enlarge the area. Then after several weeks we'd include more of the house. After many cycles at this rate, it was 1 1/2 before he had access to the bedrooms. This was the place that worked for him, other dogs may be quicker or slower.

2 years

We have a 7 month old puppy. He is house broken but we rcate him when we are going to be out of the house. I think it is too early to trust him completely but what age generally did people leave their dogs at home without crate or other space constraint.