It's been a while since I have had a puppy!

[geomama]

I am bringing home a puppy next week and am trying to figure out about crate training her. She is 8 wks old. I have a two story house with all bedrooms upstairs, but much of the time we are downstairs. I have two crates from previous pups/blending households. Do I want just one crate to be her's or one for when we are gone during the day... bigger open area downstairs (kids will remember to take her out when they beat us home) and one in our bedroom upstairs; or do we just use one? I don't want to confuse her. I don't want her to be lonely/scared at night. She isn't going to be without a human but for a few hours a day unless my oldest child's work schedule changes.

Any advice for crate training is appreciated, it's been 5 yrs since I have crate trained and I am afraid I am forgetting things.

... expecting our arrival in 5 days!!

 

[phoebegirl]

I'm bringing home my puppy tonight and have been taking all of the same things into consideration. The layout of my house sounds like yours (along with schedules.) I am planning on her being in the crate downstairs in the living room the first few nights and I am sleeping on the couch. I figure with housebreaking it will be a lot more convenient and quick to get her outside if I'm already on ground level. I will eventually move the crate upstairs for nighttime once she gets the housetraining thing and I have a puppy pen to use for downstairs daytime.

I'm curious what everyone else's thoughts are as well!

 

[Jakesmum]

Our house is all on one level, but we only had the crate in our bedroom when Jake was a pup. He would be crated in there when he was asleep at night and when we were out during the day. When we were home he had his bed in the main room with us and it was only occasionally he would disappear to his crate. As he got older we would baby gate him in our room so he would have his crate to sleep in but free roam of the room while we were away. Now that he's an adult he has free roam of most of the house, we close off some rooms and don't let him in the basement by himself (he still likes to chew on stuff that's not his every once in a while).