When to Stop Crating a Dog at Night?

Choosing when to stop crating a dog at night can be a difficult task, especially when your beautiful house is on the line.

One wrong move could spoil that expensive sofa you bought last week or turn your once elegant home into a hopeless mess!

There are no right or wrong answers to when to stop crating a dog at night or during the day. A lot of factors come into play when deciding when to ditch a crate, the most important one being how much you trust your pooch. As a rule of thumb, you can stop crating a dog at night at the 1-year mark when your dog has matured and turned into a well-behaved ball of fluff.

Still confused about when to let him roam free inside the house at night? Then, read on for a more detailed answer.

Factors to Know When to Stop Crating a Dog at Night

Let’s look at a couple of factors to help you decide.

Age

Age is just a number, they say! Well, this fits perfectly according to our case. The mental age of your puppy matters the most, as a puppy who’s just 9 months old might behave like an adult and an adult one like a puppy, tearing and messing everything up.

You can generally stop crating your dog at night or during the day when he’s 1 year old and is less likely to get into any kind of trouble unsupervised.

Trustworthiness

The most important factor for us as dog owners is how much trust we have in our pooch. You need to check this yourself and find out how much time he could go unsupervised outside without chewing anything or wreaking havoc inside your home.

A good idea would be to first check how well-mannered he is when out of his crate. If everything checks out and there are no red flags, you can go with a test run.

Install a camera inside your home specifically for the area (preferably a single room) you are planning to let him loose. Clear out any valuables and head out of the room.

Now check on him for a couple of hours, if all’s well, then start letting him loose for smaller durations at night. Keep on increasing the duration and the allowed roaming area until you have a good trust system in place.

Maturity Level

Another important factor to consider is the maturity level of your dog. Again, you can do a test run to check how maturely your doggo behaves when he’s outside his crate and if he doesn’t have any accidents while he’s at it.

Doing this helps to gauge where your dog is at in the crate training process. And it would help you decide whether to let him out at night or not.

Who Let The Dogs Out – Wuff Wuff!

So, there you have it.

Knowing when to stop crating your dog at night depends on a couple of factors, including the age, trustworthiness, and maturity level of your furball.

The best way to know for sure is to do a test run. If he behaves well and doesn’t poop or pee during the process, that’s your cue to try your luck!

Did you find this post helpful?

If so, do check out our other dog-crating articles and share them with your dog-loving friends and family.

Thanks for reading!