Hi @GADDay, I am not quoting again because with the size of my posts it would get ridiculous!
You say that yours have been perfectly fine without water over night, I'm sorry but I need to make a few comments about that:
a) but your dog doesn't sound like it is a puppy, and you sound caring enough, and alert enough, that if your 4 legged members of the family needed you for anything in the night (when your husband is away anyway), you would hear them scratchat the door, or bark or miaow (that's useful, miaow gives me lots of vowels for wordle, thanks!).
b) with the best will in the world (please bear with me saying), that because of the content of a) above, you don't actually know if they would be fine without water if they were thirsty overnight, as they could tell you if they weren't, and so far they have been.
NB unless it was extremely hot overnight, no cat or dog in the UK would be likely to die from having one night without water available to them. However, that does not mean that they didn't feel very thirsty and uncomfortable without the water.
Also, even if someone were to measure out how much water they had left out for their dog overnight, every night, and that the first thing they did every morning (even before they pee - the human, not the dog), was to pour that water back into the measuring jug, and found that not a drop had gone missing (ok, technically that couldn't happen because a tiny bit of water would stay stuck to the dog's water bowl, but most of us don't have scientific measuring jugs for measuring micro amounts, so we probably wouldn't notice the difference anyway), that would not set a precedent.
I mean by that, that just because he or she had never needed it in the past, the dog would still have the right to get thirsty some other night, without warning it's guardian in advance that it was going to be thirsty that night - the poor dog could be coming down with a cold, or the night might be warmer than normal, or if it is an older bitch, she might be starting the peri-menopause, and about to have her first hot flush, which could leave her very thirsty indeed!
c) however, the most worrying aspect to me of your post is when you said:
"... overnight when my animals haven't had access to water and they are perfectly fine"
because that is probably where anyone who wants verification and support that their dog doesn't need water overnight, will either stop reading the rest of your post, or will latch on to that being the only IMPORTANT part of your post. Where as the important part is really where you intimate that when not asleep on your bed, your dog and cat are somewhere else in the house, where they DO have water available to them, and when with you, they would wake you up to let you know they needed something!
Now to the subject of Closed Crates.
I'm very sorry @GADDay, but I can promise you that crates are the devil's work! In non Estate agent speech, they are not cosy, they are tiny poke holes (even if your puppy is a Chihuahua and the size of a baby mouse, he or she will grow quickly, and in the meantime could possibly get it's tiny head stuck in the bars and strangle itself), they are not comfortable - they probably can't stand up in them properly, or stretch, or change their position so they can be comfortably stretched from side to side, rather than front to back. They can't reach their water, and if it is clipped to the side of their cage on the inside, then they are likely to spill/dribble some of it onto their bedding, which would not be at all comfortable. Then of course, the having to pee in their bed (which dogs hate doing), because that is what will happen at first, until their bladders have matured enough to be able to wait to 'go' until the times their supposed guardian chooses are acceptable to them - the human!
Ah, GaDDay, the choice should not be that either a pup is in a locked cage in one room - even if that room is the main bedroom - or it is free to wander in a large, dark house with dangers all around it!
When I was a child (which was admittedly a long, long time before the devil or one of his worshippers, invented cages for dogs), when my parents got a new puppy s/he was kept in the lino covered kitchen, on a comfy bed, with the water bowl near by. Said puppy could get up and walk around the kitchen if s/he wanted to stretch his or her legs, and if s/he wanted to pee s/he could do so far enough away from his or her bed that s/he didn't need to get stressed about it. My mum kept the kitchen clean, and there were no low down obstacles or cables for the puppy to hurt itself on.
When I have had puppies since leaving my childhood home, they have slept in my bedroom from the get go. They have had their water bowls in the bedroom, they have had a comfy bed, and yes there have been a couple of cables behind my and my husband's bedside tables, but when I have a puppy I sleep the same way as when I had young children, with one ear open, so if they moved (other than turning over) or whimpered, I was awake and checking if they were ok. The dogs always were alright, they just needed letting out into the garden to relieve themselves. Unfortunately with my children they sometimes moved or called because they weren't well in the night.
So if a potential puppy/dog guardian has either an enclosed kitchen, an enclosed boot room/utility - as long as it isn't too small - or any other room that the said guardian isn't too houseproud about - most preferably the guardian's bedroom, which should be the safest and kindest room for a puppy/dog to overnight in - then the puppy would not need a cage to keep it safe. If the potential guardian can't provide any one of those basic choices, then they should not be having a dog in the first place.
Your last sentence GaDDay explained what cages are for, hopefully I have explained well enough why none of those things apply?
Can I now explain (from all the posts I have read here and elsewhere) what locked cages are really for? Well I will anyway;
It is very simple, it is so that the puppy can't get out and pee or poo on his/her guardians carpet, porcelain tiles, polished or stained floorboards, etc, which means that the guardian doesn't have to get out of bed immediately to clean up the mess. It is apparently all right for the poor puppy to have to sleep in it all night.