When did you give your puppy free reign of the house?

[Wicker382]

our dog is now 15 months old. He's been convinced to the living room, dining room and kitchen. We've just started letting him had free reign so he comes and goes as he pleases and can go in the sitting room and bedrooms.

I just wondered how long it took others to do this? Our main reasons for delaying it so long were our 2 cats. We wanted to give them plenty of time to adjust to the new addition. They're all now comfortable in eachothers space although when pup is roaming freely we do shut the cats whatever bedroom theyre sleeping in. When were supervising we don't.

*confined

Never. My Spaniel is 2.5 and isnt allowed upstairs. We have a childgate. Its started off because he used to swallow socks. Now I just like one area not having mud, hair and wet dog smell. Even when I leave the stair gate open he still sits at the top of the stairs and wont go past.

From about 9 weeks. We were careful with the stairs but she didn’t show much interest till about 5 months. But she bobbled about downstairs between the living room and kitchen following us about. Helps we have wood floors.

It didn’t really help with leaving her on her own, but she’s a year old now and we can leave her ok.

She takes herself upstairs to bed at night.

Since she was 2 years old. We have a rescue cockapoo and she doesn't leave hair anywhere so I don't mind her sleeping on the bed during the day - mind you she usually just follows me about and she sleeps in her crate downstairs at night (wish I could get rid of the bloody thing but she loves it).

We keep the teenager's door shut though. Way too much risk of her finding half eaten food and smelly socks to eat in there!😬

At around two years old. Our stairs are steep so we didn't want him barrelling up and down when he was still growing, and after that we were doing DIY upstairs and didn't want him to get hurt on anything.

Now upstairs if finished, he has free rein.

As soon as he was reliably housetrained , prior to that he was allowed downstairs only .

My 5 year old DDog isnt allowed upstairs, we don’t have a stair gate but he just knows. He’s had free rein downstairs once he was fully housetrained but at night he’s shut out of the kitchen as the cats are shut in there and them coming in and out if the cat flap makes him bark. The lounge door is shut at night too so he’s allowed in my office where his bed is or the large hallway

Our Springer pup is nearly 14 wks and is mostly confined to kitchen and garden due to wet, muddy, overexcitedness. Also, still experiencing intermittent wee accidents.
She has a potter about the ground floor when reasonably dry and calm to see what the family are up to and get acquainted with the rooms - hopefully novelty will reduce.
She has been in study and sitting room on laps for a cuddle in the evening. She otherwise goes nuts in the sitting room so limited exposure to that room. She's never alone in the kitchen, unless she's asleep and we nip out to do something useful.
I don't intend to allow her upstairs at all. No need. She gets lots of cuddles and love, without needing to be on our beds.

My shitzu cross is scared of our stairs after venturing up them as a young pup and getting stuck. So he only comes upstairs if someone carries him up.

Depends what you mean by free rein tbh... because the short answer is never really.

When they’re little/new they don’t get upstairs as that’s where the cat hides. After settling in I don’t unless they’ve a particular reason not to be using stairs stop them - but they also don’t have much reason to be up there without a person, so they just kind of potter about with me.

“She otherwise goes nuts in the sitting room so limited exposure to that room.“

You might want to have her in there more often and just put up with the going nuts for a bit till she gets bored - there’s a chance it might always be the exciting room otherwise.

Can't remember exactly when but I think sometime after the worst bit of adolescence (possibly before 1 year old) when he wouldn't get up to mischief.

He now has total free run of the house but I know if he isn't with me he is on our his bed

Never, bedrooms always out of bounds. It's good to give them boundaries.

Our 2 year lab is not allowed upstairs. I can’t cope with all the shedding downstairs let alone upstairs.

6 months.. but she was totally reliable toileting from 12 weeks. We had her downstairs only til 6m but my brother came for xmas with his dog and we let her sleep up with us Xmas eve to stop them bouncing around.. and she has been on the bedroom floor at night ever since!

She doesn't shed much, is not a chewer or any trouble at all so other than never going for a bath without her coming in and watching to make sure I don't go down the plug hole... it's all fine!

Never allowed upstairs because of the cat and potential to bring dirt upstairs. Downstairs is wood or tile floors so he goes where he likes. Kept him confined to kitchen/back areas until about a year old.

He's now 5 months old and after he'd been here for about 4 weeks we let him have relatively free run (confined to the corridor where I work during the working day), and we then removed the houseline as well. We live in a bungalow so there's no stairs to worry about.

There is a still a baby gate in place between the two parts of the house and the room with his crate in has a large part gated off that he cannot access... mainly because it is currently a bit of a dumping ground and what he could swallow in there doesn't bear thinking about.

Having said that we do keep a very close eye on him and he is rarely out of our sight.

Have just put the Christmas tree up... so shall be keeping an eye on that as well, we have fencing prepared just in case!!

The answer is immediately and never. In that, he aways had the option to go somewhere I wasn't but never took it until he was at least a year old. Even now he tends to be with me (4 years old) wherever I am in the house. If not with me, then reliably snoozing in one or two favourite spots.

Free rein--as in horses being given their head, which is the correct spelling.
Free reignas in ruling over the householdno, not a good idea.

Our dog isn’t allowed upstairs, she’s 10 years old now.

For the first four weeks he was limited to the living area, once he was more reliable with toilet training he was allowed in my bedroom, but only with one of us. He isn’t allowed in my sons bedroom as I’m worried about him eating something he shouldn’t, so theres a baby gate in the hallway to my sons room.

Our JRT is 13 months and is mainly in the living room if we are. If we are in the kitchen he has free run of both the rooms and hallway. I don't really like him going upstairs as a rule. He sometimes does but not very often. He does chew things or have accidents. But he can't get down the stairs by himself (not sure if he's thick or scared or both) so I discourage him from going up because it's a pain having the fetch him down again.

Doesn't chew things or have accidents