Our 14 month old dog is 100% crate trained. We would like to start allowing her to be loose in the house when we are gone (instead of in the crate) How do we do this?

Ed,

I have a 14 month old dog that I've housebroken and trained using your videos. She's been crate trained since day one and was very easy to house break and we've only lost one heating pad cord due to her chewing mainly because whenever we leave the house we place her in her cage.

Recently I've been considering allowing her to stay in an area in the basement where she can do no harm. I'd love her to eventually be able to roam the house or at least the whole basement but initially a small area in the basement would be nice. I have a couple of concerns that I'd appreciate your opinion on. Is she too young for this? Also, she seems to love the cage as she runs to it when it's time for us to go and I often find her laying in it while we are home. I'm wondering if there may be repercussions to the environment change. I was thinking about letting her stay in the new area for short periods of time to let her get used to the idea but I wanted to get your opinion first.

Thanks,
Bob