Hey guys. Just out of curiosity, how long did you wait before being able to leave your husky out of the crate when leaving?

It depends on the dog. I don't think I will ever be able to leave Kale alone in the house without any supervision, especially since I have cats. He's great with them, but he's still a husky. I've heard some people say they could leave them unsupervised when there Sibe was 3 yrs, and some up to 5-7 yrs. Age is relative in this situation like a mentioned above, it depends on your individual dogs temperament. Start out small, leave the house for 5 mins and see what he does, and gradually increase the time. Give them something to do while your gone, like stuffing a Kong and freezing it and giving it to them right before you leave.

it took ours 1.5 yrs to leave them out after adopting them.

I never crated Koda(had him since a pup- he hasn't had an accident since he was 7 weeks old so we never got a crate to begin with) and Rogue is 4 months old now and stays out of her crate when we're gone for up to 3 hours, will be longer when she can for sure hold her potty. However neither of my dogs were never destructive and chewed on things aside from bones and toys, so as long as they could hold their bladder for the time I was gone they were fine.

Like Brooke said, all depends on the dog and when you feel confident they will not go to the bathroom or be destructive.

Heather keeps rolling the dice and winning! Our first husky would lull us into a sense of security, so we would leave her for a few hours and she would mess up something. At about 1.5 to 2 years she ate an ink pen, leaking ink all over the new carpet, and some birth control pills... so obviously she lost her priviledges. I think she was not left out again until she was 6-7 years old. Even then she would occasionally do something naughty. By this time we had kids and she loved board books (to eat, of course, not to read), so we lost a few books that were not put away properly. Once she found a tiny frayed edge on the berber carpet... if you've never seen a "run" in berber carpet, it's not a pretty sight.

Like others have said, I've heard all dogs are different... but I think I rolled the dice and got the same craziness AGAIN! I know one thing, 9.5 months is too young to leave Sabaka alone for even 5 minutes (he goes in his crate when I shower)!

We didn't start trusting Mya out of the crate while we were at work until she was about 3yrs old or so. Kody will be staying in his crate for a while being that he's only 1..lol

i guess i should have said that sierra was about 7 and jack was about 2.5 when we started to "trust" them. we got them at 6 and 1.5 so not puppies but still not settled in the home that took 1.5yrs to do as well as teach US what we needed to husky proof to keep the destruction from happening. we still come home to the news paper shredded some times if WE did not put it away
some huskies do great out and some can NEVER be let out just depends on the husky. we still have the crates up and they eat in them,and if we have workers over they can be locked up and not risk they getting out of the house. crate training is a good idea no matter what.

SabakaMom wrote:

Heather keeps rolling the dice and winning! Our first husky would lull us into a sense of security, so we would leave her for a few hours and she would mess up something. At about 1.5 to 2 years she ate an ink pen, leaking ink all over the new carpet, and some birth control pills... so obviously she lost her priviledges. I think she was not left out again until she was 6-7 years old. Even then she would occasionally do something naughty. By this time we had kids and she loved board books (to eat, of course, not to read), so we lost a few books that were not put away properly. Once she found a tiny frayed edge on the berber carpet... if you've never seen a "run" in berber carpet, it's not a pretty sight.

Like others have said, I've heard all dogs are different... but I think I rolled the dice and got the same craziness AGAIN! I know one thing, 9.5 months is too young to leave Sabaka alone for even 5 minutes (he goes in his crate when I shower)!

LOL, I seriously am kissing Rogue every day telling her she is an angel!! I told you guys I would have TWO well behaved huskies! But I think she is so good because she just mimics Koda. If Koda is having an energy spurt, they play together or will throw their toys around. If Koda is gnawing a bone, she will find one to gnaw on too.. and if Koda is asleep she is asleep too. I definitely now think people who get a 2nd to "calm down" or make their 1st one behave are a bit stupid, because I'm sure if Koda was crazy she would be crazy too and I'd be shooting myself! Having one well behaved dog makes a good role model for the 2nd I suppose

Rogue is crate trained though and Koda can be put in one with something to entertain him.

we didn't crate embry until we got zoey, when we do leave embry out, he usually will pee on the kitchen floor, which i guess is okay, since it's vinyl, but i'd rather crate him then have to clean it..

Heather you're so right. Kody does mostly what Mya does! With the exception of harassing her to play when she's tired..lol. He follows her around, smells the same spots she's smelling, tries to lay right next to her (if she allows him that is), etc. It's funny!

You really are blessed though! You do have 2 perfect angels!

Both of mine stay in the crate still Luka is 4 and kitty is 2. I do trust them outside the crate at this point, but they like to play while I'm gone, and I'm worried that it may escalate into a fight. It's only happened twice, but I worry what would happen if I wasn't there. Luka does have free roam when she decides to let herself out of the crate! She learned about 6 months ago. She doesn't do it often but has been good every time she has!

Melissa, that's one of the reasons why I don't think I'll ever let Kody have free roam of the house with Mya. Or I should say free roam of the bedroom. I would leave Mya loose in the entire house, but we don't because I feel bad for Kody. His crate is in our room and it wouldn't be fair for Mya to leave him alone all day. I don't think he would be too fond of that! A big part of why he's been so good with the crate during the day is because is right there with him.

We crate trained Ginger when we got her and when we saw that she was calm and comfortable in her crate for several hours, we started to leave her out of her crate while we were gone. That took us about 6-7 months, and she was about 3.5 years old.

We then got Storm in April (he turned 6 in May), and he would go in his crate and sleep but if we closed the door and left the room, he started to get anxious or stressed.

We were thinking of getting a bigger crate (because he was neglected and left in a very small kennel) when 2 good friends, one being Heather, said, 'You have good, well behaved huskies, Claudia!'....'They've learned to respect their home!'...'You can trust them for a few hours!'

So, about 3 months after we got Storm, we started leaving Ginger and Storm out of their crates without incident.

Cheyenne was probably a year and a half before I started consistently leaving her loose with Mickey. Mishka was about a year old. Odin is loose now mostly too. At night if I remember i'll crate him but he's been pretty good about not marking.

We did it little by little, leaving them loose randomly. When that was OK we did it more and more often.

We adopted our sibe at 2 yrs old and crate trained him then. When he was 4 yrs old we started leaving him out of his crate and he's been a gem since.

I got Bella at 10 weeks and I attempted to crate train her but after she pulled out four of her baby teeth (She was only in there for an hour) I didn't bother. It really does depend on the dog though.

She's never been destructive (minus when I'm home and she wants my attention) when we leave, she usually just sleeps or eats a bone and she doesn't have accidents in the house while we're gone. So I'm not worried about leaving her alone.

My puppy would destroy our apartment if we left him out of his kennel. As long as we give him something to chew on to keep him occupied he is happy in his crate. Unless he can hear us, then he cries cause he wants to play.

Adobo can be free all the time, Biko we haven't tried yet but soon would like to test him out before winter arrives.

Isis got her first test in the house alone today, when she locked the deadbolt, with me outside. She got a good 20 minutes by herself, and didn't destroy anything.

Wow thanks for all the replies guys! Awesome. I guess I'll have to see. He's only 5 months old now. Still too young in my opinion. I'm not worried about him having an accident in the house. Rather, I'm worried that he'll destroy something or end up eating something. I mean there's really nothing on the floor that he can eat, but I'm still paranoid.

Does he try to tear things up and need to be corrected a lot when you're home?