I just got my 2-month old GSD yesterday and delighted to find out that he is toilet trained. His breeder did a good job to teach him very early I guess. He instantly knows where to do his business (liquid or solid! , and that is outside my yard. I tried putting him in the crate last night and the rest of the day and got the expected howling and crying. It's a big crate for adults (got no budget to buy a separate small crate for housetraining only to outgrow it in 2 months or so) and he never, even for once, pissed or pooped anywhere inside it. The instant I open the crate, he runs outside to go potty.

This being said, I'd like to lessen the crate training as I have noticed that he isn't getting lots of sleep. I used an airline type of crate and being in a tropical country, I just figured that it gets hot in there. He finds his own "den" under my table and sleeps for hours there. He's an angel. Never nipping, barking nor chewing anything in my home. He just chooses a nice spot and lies there! Nice thing is, he doesn't wander too far from that spot. Maybe a bit, but he always goes back to his spot.

You think I could probably lessen the crate exposure? I do have a large, well-ventilated dog cage outdoors I plan to use some time. But, with the way things are so far, I see/feel no need to keep him in a cage for the rest of the day. Like for tonight, he'll be sleeping on a doggie bed with an electric fan near him. I'll putting him on a leash and collar just as an insurance that he stays within a 5 meter radius of his sleep area during the night. I also do all his feeding on "his spot" in the house.

What are your thoughts on this?

It sounds like he's doing real well for the time being. Two reasons I say for the time being is cause things may change shortly:
1) My pup at that age would do the same thing, find a cool spot to lay and sleep there, but as he got a few days/weeks older he would sleep less and start to get into things and be a lot more of a rascal, and more crate time was necessary for my sanity. Also I would never leave him uncrated when I left the house...too dangerous for them.

2) He needs to learn to not yelp and howl when in a crate, so soon he'll need to learn to relax in there and consider it his special place. The reason he needs to learn to be in a crate is for reason #1 above, which may or may not happen but it's good for him to be accustomed to being in a crate now, at least for short periods at a time, gradually increasing the time.

It sounds like you have a very nice pup John, congratulations!

I didn't crate my pup or ever have him leashed him to me (I got him at 7 weeks).

I was prepared to if necessary of course, but like your little guy, mine also came almost fully housebroken from the breeder. He stuck to my side since day 1 and always chose, as his den, to sleep underneath whatever desk, table or chair I was sitting at.

Whenever I moved, he followed right along

He did have a couple of accidents inside during the first few weeks (when I missed his subtle warning signs that he needed to go). However since he was right there within my sight, I caught him and scolded him in the act each time, quickly took him outside, let him finish and heaped on the praise when he did go outside.

Of course this will only work if you're always there to watch him. If you have to leave the house, even for a few minutes, you should confine him (crate, kennel).

The good news is that this worked very nicely for me and my pup. He hasn't had a single accident in the house since he was 11 weeks old (he's almost a year old now) and he's always been loose and free inside the home.

Best of luck with your little one.

If you do end up needing the crate with him, believe me you'll know
Otherwise, if what you're doing now is working, I don't see a reason to change anything.
I'm certainly glad I didn't choose to crate my pup all day long - he still sticks to me like a shadow and our bond is phenomenal.

Oh yeah one more thing: I did crate my pup on a few occasions when I travelled with him (by air).

I introduced him to his travel crate a few days before the trip by putting his food and toys inside (he eventually started stashing his toys in there himself, so cute!), but I never closed the door on him.

He had just turned 4 months and he did great in his crate when we took him to the airport and later onto the plane. Didn't whine or cry a single time, even when I handed his crate over to the airport worker and walked away from him.

The flight attendents later told me how cute and well behaved he was in the cargo hold too

Just to say that it's still a good idea to get him used to his crate even if you don't intend on using it. You never know when you'll need to have him in there and the crate-introduction work is bound to pay off sooner or later.

I agree with Yuko about some future need of the crate, like leaving the house like I mentioned, or a car trip. And I can say that if my pup hadn't started getting into things constantly he would have been raised without the crate for the most part (except to get used to it so I could leave the house). I even believe that he would have been a much more behaved pup in the house now had I not needed to crate him....big darn.

When he was in his "get into everything" phase, even tethering him to me didn't work to curb it, as there's always something nearby, such as a table leg or sofa cushion or a book, etc. So rather than tell him 'no' every few seconds (constant correction), we started more crate time.

At 2-months old your puppy is not potty trained, he is too young to understand that he is to go potty outside only. So far you have been consistent enough to take him out where he hasn’t gone in the house yet. Can you house train a puppy without a crate? Yes, but it’s much harder and you will end up with more accidents in the house then you would using a crate. There are other benefits to crate training then just the potty training, wait until the evening witching hour when your puppy goes into 2nd gear and becomes a little alligator, sure would be nice to be able to put him into his bed with something else to chew on other then you. Or the times when you have other things to do and can’t keep you eye’s and attention on him, having him safe and happy in his crate is priceless.

I had the opportunity to raise one dog using a crate, and what a great tool it is and certainly made it much easier to raise that pup. My last three dogs were raised without the benefit of a crate, only because my husband thinks it’s mean to put the dog in it. So I compromised, he got to get up a couple times a night to take the puppy out and clean up any accidents in the house the puppy had and any chewing the pup did was the fault of the husband not the puppy.

I have two dogs with two different crate habits: My Corgi was crate-trained immediately. He was perfect in there. Since he got treats in there, and meals, he took to it immediately. I'd have him crated by my bed during the first few weeks, and crated when I left the house. I was living in a small apartment at the time and my neighbors told me they never heard a peep from him when I was gone (and they could even hear me sneeze through the walls!). Now, at age 2, he's completely reliable in the house so he's a free-range Corgi.

My GSD pup is kind of "oddly" crate-trained. The back of our CRV has a cargo area with a divider that he goes in whenever we travel. I can put him in there and he's as content and well-behavied as my Corgi was in his crate, whether I'm there or not. He'll either sleep or watch the world go by, but he's always been docile in there.

However, he's not so good with the house-crate. I feed him in the crate, and he has to stay in there on the rare occasions that I can't take him with me when I leave. But due to under-exposure of that crate, he will cry pretty much the whole time I'm gone, and the reunion scene when I let him out can be brutal with him leaping and whining and wagging. Somehow he's figured out that I come back if I leave him in the car, but if I leave him in the crate it's always abandonment in his eyes!

At nighttime, I let him sleep tethered to my bed, and it was the only way anyone could get any sleep. Anywhere else (even in the crate by my bed) and he would scream. I'm pretty stubborn, but this dog is even more stubborn than I am...he won that battle. Now he sleeps by my bed without the tether. I soon realized that he wouldn't wander away without me. If he has those sudden midnight potty needs, I get a tongue bath as an alarm.

During the day he shadows me and sleeps where I happen to be. He's been house-trained (and by that I mean zero accidents) since he was 9 weeks old. So for that reason alone, I wouldn't need a crate with him. HOWEVER, he WILL trash the place if I leave him alone.

Why am I making this into such a long reponse? I must be a compulsive-typer. Anyway, once I trust him in the house, I'll probably get rid of the crate for him like I did with the Corgi. He's turning into a great guard-dog and keeping him in a crate isn't going to help in that respect!

Like Yuko said, you'll know if you need a crate or not. Your dog will make it abundantly clear if he's not ready for parole yet!

John,

Whether you need to crate train the pup is something that will play out over time. But I think it's a good idea to do so, so if the need arises he'll be used to it.

My 14 month old GSD sleeps in his crate, he gets into things if he doesn't. Yours might turn into a little explorer at some point, and you'll want to be ready for that.

Rich

Many thanks to all of you for the great advice! I'm giving my pup a grace period of a week to be pretty much a spoiled pup, just so that he could settle in. He's just a baby. After that, I'll be using my aluminum dog cage instead of my airline type plastic crate. I'll probably get him used to the plastic crate from time to time for travel. I want to post a pic of my pup here by the way, how do I do that?

You could feed him in the crate to get him used to being in there ... somewhere, possibly here it was suggested that you put the food and water in there with him outside the crate such that he cannot get in. This creates a desire to get inside the crate. :-)

Then after making him sit or something, open the door and tell him "okay".

Also you could toss treats and/or toys in there at various times in order to get him going in and out.

I have the XL crate in the kitchen, and my pup would get upset and bark at the crate door. So I just took the door off for a while, so he could get used to the crate.

Later I put the door back on and started feeding him inside it for a while (2 - 3 weeks or so).

He's fine with the crate.