I still feel like it might be a bit soon, but does anyone have any tips on beginning to transition outside of the crate? Our pup, Greta, (8 mo's now) seems to be doing very well with house-training. I think she had maybe 5 accidents in the house during the first month or two we had her and has been great since. She still wakes us up around 3am to go out a few times per week, but goes right out to do her thing and comes back in quickly. We've been letting her sleep on the end of the bed between 3/330 and 530 am when this happens and she does well.

Read on the housebreaking bible (I think) about tethering at night but I'm not sure how I feel about that... I could imagine her wrapping herself up in the tether and none of us getting any sleep lol.

Thanks as always!

It seems like around six to eight months is when I started transitioning my previous pups into being trusted outside of the crate at night.

You don't mention where the crate normally is. In your bedroom? If so, I think allowing her those couple of hours of freedom in your bedroom is a good start. What I always did is to keep the bedroom door closed when first transitioning. I don't normally like my door closed, but if that's where the dog's crate is, having freedom in that room with the door closed is the next logical step, so I put up with it for however long it takes.

If the pup has been good in the crate and sees it as their "den," I think it's natural that the enclosed room would be seen as an extension of the den, a place they are comfortable in and don't want to soil. Of course, continue to puppy-proof whatever rooms she is going to have access to by keeping tempting items out of her reach.

I think you can just gradually extend that period of time that she's trusted loose in the bedroom, and if that works out fine, try opening the door to see how she handles that. You can always use gates to confine her to certain portions of the house at night, but of course be careful. Gates can be dangerous if somebody gets up at night and forgets they're there!

eta: I've never personally used tethering at night. Maybe there are others here with experience in that method.

Ditto with Cheri.

Even my dogs that were scheduled for being outside such as my GSDs they still spent the first 7-8 months in the house to learn basic manners and house breaking.

Thanks guys-

Yes, the crate is in the bedroom; I'm trying to figure out how to make room for the bigger crate since we had to go to a less chewable kuranda bed and she seems to have grown again over night. At her weigh-in last week she was 61 lbs and we can still see a bit of rib... I was really hoping she was going to be small!

Puppy proofing is still a challenge for us. 99% of the time we see her right away but we have still lost a few outdoor plants and articles of clothing when my hubs and I both think the other is watching her . Not sure why they are always my clothes lol.

Oh, wow, she's really growing up beautifully! I love your new sig pic!

Thanks Cheri- I agree, she is so pretty! She's out of this breeder local to south texas: http://sudenblick.com/

Careful with the outdoor plants.

Not all are dog friendly!

I searched for this and read that the leafs and the flowers of Azaleas amongst other plants are toxic for pets. And darned, we have 3 Azaleas in our yard.

When my dogs were puppies they used to try almost every plant in our yard. A few times I saw them vomiting but had no idea it could be because of a this.

But later on I've never seen them eating from them. Can It be that they learned through their own bad experience to avoid those plants? Or should I better remove them?

My personal opinion: I'm not sure there's a hard and fast rule with plants. I think you have to make an individual decision based on how much time your dogs spend in the yard unsupervised, how much they are prone to chewing on things in general, how big the dog(s) are and what the plant is.

At our house, Jake & Dixon never bothered / bother the giant cactus in our yard (10+ years); Greta, however, seems to have developed a taste for nopales and despite lots of re-directing and constant attention would not leave it alone... I then spent more than a month tearing it out. It would only take her a few minutes to tear off a pad / leaf and run around with it or bring it inside to chew on. Sadly it had to go.

Can you fence or landscape around them to make it more difficult to get to the azaleas?

Wow, I've read therethat most cactuses are toxic for dogs, some less, other can be deadly. Good you removed it. Fortunely they are not very attractive for the dogs because of the spines. But better safe than sorry.

My dogs are always outside and not always supervised. But6 as I have never seen then again eating the azaleas and they were never sick again, I'm not very concerned. There where those plants are I can't fence. We have already fenced so many parts of the yard, because they ysed to destroy everything when running about during their wild hours. But I will observe this better from now on. I don't mind to remove a plant if necessary, it can always be replaced by another one. A dog can't be so easily replaced.