How long can a new 8 week old puppy go at night in his crate?

Answer 1

Puppies can be in their crates all night. Just make sure you let them out to go to the bathroom right before you go to sleep and as soon as you wake up in the morning.

You should get a crate that is just large enough for the puppy. If you want to buy a large crate because your dog will get bigger, then stick a box or some kind of separator in the back of the crate to make it smaller. This makes it so that the dog will not want to go to the bathroom in its bed.

Answer 2

A puppy should not be crated for more hours than his age in months plus 1. For example, a three month old puppy should not be left crated for more than four hours. That's for the sake of humane treatment. However, for the sake of training, they shouldn't be left in a crate for more than two hours. At a minimum they should be offered the choice to toilet every two hours until they are house trained. Without frequent offers you lose opportunities to reinforce a desired behavior and increase the likelihood of an undesired behavior (toileting in the crate).

When a pup must be left confined for more than crate training, say while an owner is at work, he should be left in a pen instead of a crate. The pen should be puppy proofed, include a bed, food and water dishes, and include enough room for the pup to toilet away from his bed and food. Many people use a laundry room for this purpose, which is fine, so long as everything that could possible hurt the pup or be damaged by him is locked away and out of his reach. Be sure the flooring of the puppy pen is easy to clean.

A section of vinyl flooring can be purchased from a home improvement store and placed under the pen to protect things like wood floors, but be careful the vinyl extends well past the sides of the pen and the pup cannot move the pen to the edge of the vinyl. For some reason, many pups just love to get to that edge and shred the vinyl.

Answer 3

Crating your 8 week old dog, may not sound easy, but is simpler than you think. All you have to do is put the puppy in the crate during the night, and when you leave. Make sure to let them outside to do their business before and after they are in the crate. Just like you, the dog will want something to do, so you should put toy, blanket, and such in the puppy's crate to make sure they are not feeling locked up. The puppy will usually learn to like her crate and will no longer pee, or poop in her little bed. I tried this with my new puppy, Stella, who is now nine weeks old, and she is a well crate trained dog.

I hope this helps to answer your question.