Transitioning from crating

[pepper3]

Hello All you helpful hound lovers
I was wondering if you could give me some good tips/advice on how to go about transitioning Pepper from her crate. We intend to keep it up bc she does like to have it available. We're really curious to see how she will do if we start not leaving her in her crate for longer periods of time. We realize this will take time and encouragement, baby steps. We're curious if anyone out there has experience transitioning a hound that exhibited separation anxiety in the beginning, like many do, but is now more comfortable with her environment. Initially she tore at the blinds, well, she ripped them all down but we acknowledged that this was our fault for leaving her in a huge open house alone totally freaking her out. We crate her whenever we leave now. We've had her for about 2 months and think she may be ready to at least have the option. In the end she may need to be crated but we'd love to some ideas on working on not having to.
Thanks so much
Brooke and Kyle

[Trina]

Have you tried just leaving the crate up and open? That way when you leave she can go in there to feel comfortable. If you feel she is 'using it as a crutch' too much, you can always close the door so she can't get in a few hours a day until she gains more confidence.
I know Scott had a similar issue with Beau at first, maybe he will pop on with some advice.

[mblane]

Brooke and Kyle,
Not sure where her crate is stationed, but I have a 'dog room' with the crates up and open for them at all times. Two of mine like to go in 'at will' and chill out. The other two could really care less for the crate now. I do not crate any longer--all of them have the run of the house while away. I am sure that they have some killer parties while I am gone too! If the crate is in a bedroom or a room with only once entrance, try leaving the crate door open, Pepper out, and a babygate up at the entrance door to the room. This will give her a small amount of freedom and you can take baby steps with the time away and baby steps with what part of the house she has access to when you both are gone. Let us know how things progress.
Mark

[Tom]

We did the same thing Mark did with our first hound, Betty.

The crate was in the bedroom, door open all day. She would sleep in the crate. We baby-gated an ever-widening part of the house until we knew we could trust her throughout.

When we adopted our second, who came from another home and not the track, we collapsed Betty's crate and scattered dog beds throughout the house in twos.

[pepper3]

Thanks everyone!
Well, her crate is in our living room downstairs and it's always available for her to use, the door remains open at all times. We occasionally put treats in there for her to find so she doesn't think of it as punishment when we leave. We will also put her in there while we're at home with the door shut so she doesn't associate it with us leaving. But, she really couldn't care less about the crate these days, she spends most of her time in our bedroom upstairs on her bed with her bones and toys. She rarely comes downstairs unless it's to walk, eat, or just check out what's going on before returning to her 'hangout'.
The only experience we/she had being left uncrated was when we first got her and we attempted to gate her in to our kitchen but she destroyed the blinds regardless of whether they were up or down and went AWOL over the gate. But that was too soon to leave her uncrated we think. Two months later I think she's probably feeling a lot more comfortable that we'll return. We always leave some music on. I'm going to try the suggestions to slowly widen her space, starting with leaving her upstairs in our bedroom where she feels most comfortable. I'll keep you all updated. Worse case scenario she destroys the blinds and we've already replaced enough to really care. They know us well at Home Depot
Wish us luck!