if you don't crate in the day where do you leave puppy if you go out?

[Perfidy]

Puppy is 4 months and has never been left alone for longer than us popping down the road to pick up a parcel that had got wrongly delivered and to our garage etc.

WFH has meant we've been here, or she's been left with someone if we've been out for longer.

So...she's fine in a crate at night in the the hall outside our room. During the day she picks a spot for a lie down with whoever she has picked for her wfh companion for the day. Usually upstairs hidden half under the spare bed while DH works.

We want to start getting her used to us going out.

Where do you leave them that's safe if you don't crate?

We had part of a room , that was puppy safe , fenced off until he was reliably house trained and allowed to roam .

I use a whelping pen. Or you could use a playpen.
Or puppy proof a room or part of one (room divider?)
Worth teaching them to “settle” on a bed in a particular place.

We have a crate but have never closed it. Our dog goes into the kitchen during the day.

I wouldn't leave a 4mo puppy outside of a crate or a very puppy-proofed room, just in case.

Can you use a pen and fence-off an area of the kitchen for her?

We could put a child gate up to keep her in the kitchen. She's pretty free range at the moment as the toilet training has gone well and she's not very chewy. But I wouldn't leave her free range if she was on her own of course.

I'm unsure whether to start crate training her in the day. The thing is which room to choose? She's quite velcro.

We shut the bedroom doors and left him to it, but at that age it was only really during the 10 minute school run. But he just lays on the front door mat whenever we (or just me) goes out and waits there.

We put a baby gate across the kitchen door until ours was a year old. There was nothing he could get to that would hurt him and he could roam about, go in his open crate, have water etc and that worked very well. We did have to learn to put the chairs so he couldn't get up on them after the Tissue Box Massacre or Snow Scene Creation Attempt.

We used a pen - put the crate in there with the door open so he spent most of the time sleeping in there anyway, but water and a few toys etc in the pen.

Mine will be going into the kitchen with a baby gate across the door, purely because it's a laminate floor! With the plan to let him roam the house once he's reliably toilet trained.

I'm happy with him being crated at night but don't like the thought of crating during the day.

Just in kitchen with door closed. I know he cries when we leave but think he's ok, no destruction on return

loopy how old is the dog? I wouldn’t be happy leaving a dog to cry. Even if there was no damage when I returned.

We leave our ddogs in the kitchen when popping out to shops etc, they also sleep in there at night. I don't close the door during the day but have a baby gate up. Also pop them in there for "timeout" when dpup has been walked and then goes a bit loopy (probs through overstimulation)!