# When is the right timing to let V loose in the house alone?



## MAPLEBABY (Jun 26, 2011)

Hi there! 

My girl Maple is a 6 month V. I have joined this forum a few months ago but lazy me says hi to everyone now. I really appreciate every single writing here, it has been very helpful. Maybe that's why it took me so long to write one for myself. Thank you all who has been through with their Vs and shared the experience! 

Here's my girl's routine.

7:30 am wake up
7:30-8:15 am morning walk and fetch game
8:30 am breakfast
8:30am -12:30pm crated
12:30-2:30pm 1 hour exercise by a dog walker(but she is out for 2 hours since she is the first pick up and last drop off) 
2:30pm to 6pm crated
6-7pm eveing walk or dog park 
7-11pm cuddle with me watching TV
11PM-7:30 am sleep in the crate

She seems fine to be crated as she will go in there on command "kennel up" or maybe she just understands that it's the routine she has to follow.

As I would feel terrible to leave her longer than 4-5 hours in the crate, I hired the dog walker, but I am wondering at what months/age experienced V owners let their dogs loose in the house.. (and the furniture/shoes remained intact)

I know she is still very young and I wouldn't put my idea into action until her bladder is fully developed, I would like to have a ballpark figure at what point I could do more intense exercise just twice a day (before and after work) vs. current three times a day schedule with a dog walking service right in the middle. 

Assuming not every V owner here works from home or hires a dog walker everyday, anyone who has experience with transitioning from crated to letting loose alone in the house or even successfully crating V for about 8 hours a day without too stress on dogs, any advice will be really helpful! 

Thanks all!

**Oh!if Maple's mom reads this,,
I hope you don't get upset I named her Maple as well.  I just googled 'brown female dog's name' and Maple was one of them. Anything with Z,F,V,R would be tough for my parents to pronounce in their language so I ended up picking an ezy one for them. lol.. They said no to ambeR, Zoe, ViVa that I suggested..


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## mswhipple (Mar 7, 2011)

Solid advice from the Michigan Humane Society:

"They chew 'til they're two!" 

I'm hoping someone else can advise you about when it is safe to start more intense exercise, such as running with your dog. 

Maple is a real cute name, and I'm sure others who have chosen it won't mind at all.


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## RubyRoo (Feb 1, 2011)

Ruby is 9 months and we did a trial of trying to trust her a little more. I started out with leaving her in our bedroom while I showered. Normally she is not allowed upstairs since that is the cat zone. Ruby decided to take my husbands glasses and chew on them while I showered. This is the first time she ever destructed anything besides a toy. Shame on us for leaving his glasses out. I instructed my husband to put his glasses away (of course, he didn't) and she got them again!!! 

Morale of the story - they need to be watched at all times at this young age.


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## Vespasia (Apr 19, 2010)

Welcome to the forum Maplebaby!

My Vizlsa, Hally, has close to EXACTLY the same schedule as Maple does, so I thought I'd chime in. We opted for a very gradual removal of the crate and it seemed to work for us. We first stopped crating her at night. We instead allowed her to sleep in a dog bed beside us (and of course as time has gone on, she now likes to sleep on our bed and now that it's getting colder even tries to get under the covers....LOL! so much for our boundaries!) Anyway, she was probably about 6-8 months before we started that because we wanted to make sure that she was fully house trained. That worked great for a few months and then when she was about 15 months, we started leaving her out of the crate in the morning but asked the dog walker to crate her when they returned from their mid-day exercise. And a couple of months after doing that, we eliminated the crate all together. Hally is now 26 months.

We didn't have issues with chewing stuff at first (but we do now...I've just posted on that), so definately be wary that a dog on it's own for much of the day can easily get bored and look for something fun to chew on!


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## MAPLEBABY (Jun 26, 2011)

Thank you all the adivce. I will keep them in mind. I guess I have to be real careful about this and take it very slow. 

I just dropped off Maple at the Vet's for spay surgery and it felt so weird!! I read many posts on the after surgery care to preprare myself, but hope there's no (bad) surprises... 

*Ruby, my Maple is the runt of the litter too and also her parents were on the smaller scale (mom 40lb, dad 48lb). I asked for the smallest one actually.. She was 33 lb at 6 months. How much does she weigh now? I'm really curious what Maple's final weight is going to be. Vet thinks over 50lb based on her paw size, but not sure how experienced he is with Vs..


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## Linescreamer (Sep 28, 2010)

It depends on the dog. ??? I'm not sure I'd leave a hunting dog (read Vizsla) uncrated. There will certainly be exceptions but, this breed is high strung and when they get wound up (like a top) sing!!!!! all that energy has to go somewhere. Stop feeling bad for the dog. He/she will do just fine crated when unattended.  If you really want to do it. I'd recommend a 10 mile run every day before you leave the house.


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## RubyRoo (Feb 1, 2011)

MAPLEBABY said:


> Thank you all the adivce. I will keep them in mind. I guess I have to be real careful about this and take it very slow.
> 
> I just dropped off Maple at the Vet's for spay surgery and it felt so weird!! I read many posts on the after surgery care to preprare myself, but hope there's no (bad) surprises...
> 
> *Ruby, my Maple is the runt of the litter too and also her parents were on the smaller scale (mom 40lb, dad 48lb). I asked for the smallest one actually.. She was 33 lb at 6 months. How much does she weigh now? I'm really curious what Maple's final weight is going to be. Vet thinks over 50lb based on her paw size, but not sure how experienced he is with Vs..


Hi Maplebaby,

Ruby is about 38-40 lbs right now at 9 months. I haven't weighed her lately. I think she will fill out a little more but that is about it. We are going to see Ruby's mother and 2 litter mates this weekend so I am curious to see her size compared to them. Of course, I will take lots of pics and post them.


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## laurita (Jun 12, 2011)

Hi Maplebaby,
Our pup is 9 mos old and over the last month, we've allowed him to be outside of his crate for 30 min-2 hrs. We had never had chewing problems even with him as a young puppy, but I think adolescence is definitely a period to watch out for chewing, because he's starting to want to chew on anything that's around. He used to never be interested in my shoes, and the other day I noticed a chewed up high heel. We've also allowed him to sleep outside the crate for the last 2 months. No problems until this morning when a contact case (with contacts) was destroyed. With all this in mind, he's going to lose that freedom that he was enjoying. The only time now I leave him out is if he is so zonked from exercise that I know he's not moving. Last Saturday, he got a TON of exercise and he just wanted to sleep. I didn't feel like picking him up and I left him while I went out to dinner and left a bone for him. He didn't touch anything but the bone. I think that until they're 2 they're going to vacillate between phases of maturity and adolescence and you may feel confident one second about their ability to handle freedom and the next thing you know they've swallowed your contact lenses, ha!


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