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Before 7 months we never left our dog alone more than a hour. Now we leave her home alone up to 4 hours less than 6.
8 hours is my max, and I have 3 dogs...2 and a half Gabby, just over 1 Dudley, and 7 month old Tyson. I crate them while we're gone too. It has gotten to the point that they're so used to it, that during the day they just fall asleep even if we're home, lol. (FH and I both work full time, so they're crated all day during the week)
Our puppy is 5 months old and we leave her alone for up to 5 hours (in her crate.) Out of curiousity, why do you ask?
Both of our dogs are 5 and we leave them home for about 10 hrs. We have done this for about the last 3 years. The first 2 years they came to work with me (we have a kennel out back at the office).
They don't seem to mind, although I know they prefer to be with us all day. They have each other and don't have any behavior issues from it. We just make sure when we get home that they get to play hard for a while, or go jogging with me. We also live next door to a dog park, so sometimes we go there.
Our pup is 1 and we try not to leave him for longer than 6 hours, sometimes 7.
We have a five month old who stays at home. DH goes home at lunch and then is home by about 5:30 pm. If DH can't get home my in-laws are VERY kind and go see him. Of course by the time I get home I'm not willing to go anywhere - I just want to be with him!
Prince_Ziggy.jpg (25.7 KB, 49 downloads) 1 year old 
We have 2 big dogs, 7yrs & 6yrs old. They go on a normal work day for about 8-9 hours. (they are not in crates, if that helps for your info)They can go a lot longer, but who wants to hold it that long :)
My dog is home for 11 hours a day (I have a nice long commute). He definitely minds it, but there's nothing I can do about it. He runs loose in the house.
We're looking at adopting a dog. If we get a puppy, we will crate train him/her. The goal is to have a companion for our current dog, who is nearly 3, also crate trained. The 3 year old is allowed free reign of the house when we're gone (choosing mostly to just sleep in her open crate). We've looked at older dogs to adopt but are quite skiddish about the idea because coming from a shelter, we're not sure what we'll end up with.
We've done a lot of research and we're thinking about a basset hound. Basset hounds seem to be good doggie-siblings and thrive in a moderate-activity level environment.
We're gone about 8 hours per day, which isn't ideal for a puppy.
We are gone for about 8 1/2 hours a day. My dog is 1 1/2 she has a play-pen while we are gone. But now my dad isnt working so he comes over during the day to take her out :)
@youhavemyheart: Yea an 8 hour day is REALLY hard with a puppy. It can be done but I think it increases your potty training time substantially. Meaning a normal puppy that can be taken out every 4 hours or so will probably be potty trained within a month. A puppy that is left alone in the crate could take like 3 months to be potty trained.
If you do decide to adopt a puppy think about adopting one that is a bit older. 8 weeks is still REALLY young and no matter how often you take them out its hard for their little bladders to hold it and they just aren't quite old enough to understand commands. By 10-12 weeks they are able to start understanding the potty training concept better.
My dog is 5-6 (unsure... rescue pup I got around 3 years old), but I work at home so I don't usually have to leave him home alone for long at all. On a daily basis I'd say he's not usually left alone for more than maybe 3-4 hours max (and that is mostly weekend dates or going out with friends). Usually if I'm going to be gone more than 8 hours I try to get someone to check in on him and let him out.
However, he can and I do occasionally leave him home for up to 12 hours. He has no problem with accidents so I'm not concerned about that, but I just feel badly leaving him alone that long. That is pretty much only for special event type stuff, like if we're going to a wedding and afterparty or something. Like once or twice/year type stuff.
ETA: we never crate him or lock him up. He has free run of the house with the two cats.
I don't think I understand your post...first of all, crate training DECREASES potty training time...if you have a puppy that goes potty in their crate either the crate is too big for them or there is an underlying problem. Dogs should never go to the bathroom in their "den". My dogs were able to hold it for 8 hours in their crate from the time they were 8 weeks old. The puppy I actually got at 10 weeks and he only ever had 1 accident in the house (never in his crate) but that can be attributed to already having 2 potty trained dogs.
Our dog is 6. I don't work, so I usually don't have to leave him alone for more than a few hours. But before I got here my hubby left him for the 8 hour work days, so if we have something that keeps us out he's ok.
We adopted both of our dogs from the Hunane Society, one was a year old and the other as a 8 week old puppy. Both were unbelievably great dogs when we first got them. The one that was a year old is a pit bull, we had no issues at all. The puppy, boxer mix, was a typical puppy. The older dog helped with the potty training a lot. I've known a few friends to have issues with puppies they got from pet stores, so be carefull if that is the route you choose. Good luck!
My dog was 2 when we adopted him and now he's 4 and a half. He has no accidents when we leave him which is sometimes over 12 hours. We only do that if we need to go up to our hometown which is two hours away. He hates car rides so it'd actually be worse to take him with us. He's good for quite a while though. When my mom first got her now dog (she was 8 weeks) though she couldn't go more than an hour or two without an accident. Also, neither of these dogs are crated ever if that helps (I saw someone else put that). My fiance's brother has his dogs in crates all day and they have multiple accidents during a regular workday from what I've been told (ages 1 and 2) but were left alone for long periods of time, taken out I think once a day for about three days, when she had their baby.
Our dogs are a little over 2 and almost 4 years old. From day 1 we always had someone to come over to let them out to pee and walk them in the middle of the day crated or not.
Now they are not crated and are alone from 7:30-8am until 12-1pm, and then again until 5ish when I get home.
I think it's crucial to let them get an afternoon walk if you can afford to. Our dog walkers charge $15/visit and they come once a day Monday-Friday. It's worth every penny.
On a normal daily basis my dogs are left home alone from when my husband leaves for work around 11 until I get home from work around 6. We have a pug and a puggle, they are both almost 4. They handle it really well since they are not high energy dogs. We had the puggle from when she was a puppy and my husband took her to work with him :) and if he couldn't he'd come home and let her out of her crate and take her potty. Our pug we adopted came to us potty trained.
We have a 10 y/o rescue pug, and we leave him alone for 9 hrs a day. He usually sleeps and gets full range of the house. And since he's older, he's able to hold it with no accidents until DH or I get home.
My dog is about 7 or 8 and we leave her with free reign of the guest room/closet/bathroom when I go to work. That can be up 8-9 hours.
Our dogs are about 2 years old and we leave them while we're at work everyday. Its usually only about 7 hours, but sometimes more. Its definitely better now that we have two - I don't feel as bad since they have company.
I wish I didnt have to leave her at home alone at all :/. She is a "people dog", so I hate leaving her alone. If we are going to our friends or parents houses, we always take her along. Some people might think its weird, but thats how we are, and our friends and parents would question us as to why she's not with us if we left her at home while we wnet to their house.
Our dog is about 2 years old and we leave her home alone all day (10 hours) while I'm at work. DH travels for work during the week so she's there alone from about 7:30am - 5:30pm when I get home again. But Fridays DH works from home so she gets to hang out with him all day!
@youhavemyheart: FYI - my parents have a basset hound and they are really stubborn dogs. Very difficult to train and housebreak. They've probably had her for a year and a half and she still goes potty in the house on occasion (they've never had an issue housebreaking any of the other 7 dogs they've had over my lifetime) and she's the only dog they have ever had to crate train because she just isn't trustworthy.
Maybe look into a shitz tzu. My parents and DH's parents both have shitz tzus as doggie siblings (my parents have 2 other dogs and DH's have one other - all different breeds) and all of them get along great!
2-4 hours, our pup is almost 4 months old. Usually it's only when we're running errends etc. as she always travels with us.
Our pup is 8 months old. When I'm working I usually come home at lunch to feed him and let him out (he gets about 20 mins to run around) that usually means he's alone 4 hours in the morning and 4 hours in the afternoon.
He's usually pretty good by himself for a few hours, but about a month ago we left him (unintentionally) for about 8 hours in the house and he ripped an entire cushion off our leather couch and chewed up a bunch of stuff. We think he was mad at us! .....needless to say he's been crated for the last little while...
we have a 3.5 year old beagle terrier and a 2.5 year old yorkie. on most m-f's... they are left from 8am - 6pm... i usually work from home once a week and FI sometimes gets in early around 3-4pm... and sometimes FIL takes them over to his house... we try to balance it out... we keep them in our oversized laundry room and they mostly sleep all day... except the first hour after i've left and the last hour before someone gets home; they sit watch by the window... :T
Our dog is a 1 1/2 year old Australian Shepherd. We comfortably leave her alone for 4-6 hours. She doesn't do anything wrong when she's alone more than that, but she does start displaying anxious behaviors that show she's not happy - last time we left her that long she started licking everything - absolutely everything - in sight when we got home.
My FH is out of work right now, so he's home and Lucy's spoiled....but when we're both working, we have a dog walker come. She's usually only alone for 4-5 hours at a time. She's 95lbs and can hold it, but it's well worth the peace of mind to know she's been checked up on and that if I have to run an errand on my way home, I can without feeling guilty.
We definitely spoil her - she COULD last all day, but I'd feel bad and frankly, it's a relatively small price for a happy 95lb dog!
My dogs generally go 4-6 hours, but if I get stuck at work they are alright with 8 hours once in awhile. 2 are crated (separately next to each other) and 1 has free reign, although she hangs out in the 3rd crate most of the time.
My SO's dogs are crated for 8-10 hours and manage it okay, but he does lots of activities with them so they get lots of exercise. (in duck season they get to go hunting before work!) They are crated.
When SO's dogs were puppies (not at the same time) he had a friend stop in and let them out mid-day. Mine were all adopted as adults and have been fine from the start.
I would definitely consider an adult dog. You can usually tell a lot more what you are getting. With a puppy- you don't really know what personality they are going to grow into unless you know the parents. I would recommend checking into a few breeds that interest you and talk to a breed rescue. They will tell you the 'bad' traits of the breed and can help you find an adult or puppy that will fit in.
I got pretty much what I expected with all of my adult adoptions, with the exception of 1 but I knew she was a questionable case going in to it. (She is my first Whippet- much more stubborn than I expected and she was 8 years old and had been passed around a bit after her owner died- it took her a few weeks to accept me and then I was not allowed to leave her- EVER! Poor girl. It took a bit of medication and training, but she does great now)
We don't have our puppy anymore, boo! We moved here for grad school and the housing people originally told us we couldn't bring our dog. Then we got here and our super was totally fine with bringing our dog AND we didn't have to pay any extra!
Anyway, FMIL and FFIL have our dog temporarily, until we can afford to fly him back. (Also we're worried about shaking up his life TOO much, too often.) Right now they are keeping him in his crate 6-8 hours a day because that's just their schedule. When FI and I had our pup, we never left him alone for more than 4-5 hours. (I worked two blocks from home and FI actually worked in the same building we lived in, so it was easy to let pup out at lunch.) However, the pup is actually an adult now (about 13 months), so his bladder is ready for it, and it sounds like he adjusted to this schedule pretty easily. Sounds like FI and I were being overprotective parents, ha...
For puppies, a good rule of thumb is that they can hold themselves one hour for each month of life. i.e. a 3 month old should def. not be left alone longer than 3 hours. Once they are 6 months I personally wouldn't do longer than 6 hours until they are at least one. Even then 8 is my max. Once or twice it was 10 and I felt horrible... and my dog did too :-(
@youhavemyheart: We have a 4 year old shih tzu-pomeranian mix that we adopted from our local shelter. He's a great dog & was potty trained long before we got him. It may benefit you to get an older dog that is already potty trained if you cant be home as often to potty train. I voted for 4-6 hours. It varies depending on what we have to do, but i don't think we've left him for longer than that since we got him. He has free reign of the house while we're gone (:
We have a 7.5 month old Wheaten and he's usually home for 6-8 hours a day during the week depending on our work schedules. He's crated during this time. When he was younger my sister would come at least once, sometimes twice to let him out while he was being potty trained. In the next few weeks we'll be transitioning him to an X-Pen during the day now that we know we can trust his behavior. He sleeps happily in his crate and goes in willingly on command ("Go to Bed!"). We make sure he gets dog park time or hikes in the reservation after work at least 3-4 times a week and on weekends he pretty much comes everywhere with us.
MudMonster.JPG (2922 KB, 34 downloads) 1 year old 
I'd like to start this off by saying that we rescued our dog from the shelter. He was a 2 year old stray. I think at first our dog had separation anxiety. If we would leave him alone for any amount of time it was awful. Once, we took a 5 minute walk to take the trash down the driveway and when we came back there was poop EVERYWHERE. (Mind you, we were crate training him) He had pooped in the crate, and then KICKED IT UP onto the walls and ceiling. We were prisoners in our home for almost 4 months because we were afraid to leave him alone. One day, we decided we couldn't live our lives around a dog and went grocery shopping TOGETHER for the first time in months. When we came back, he was fine. I think he realized that we weren't going to desert him and we would always come back. Now, he still cries when we leave, but nothing like he used to do.
We sometimes have to keep him clocked up for up to 10 hours. We always put him in the crate.
We leave our doggies ( 3 yr old Chi Mix & 7 month old Basset Hound) home for 8-9 hrs... But we dont crate them they play in the back yard & when it rains they go to my parents they have a huge covered patio with their Rottie Cousin.
They do pretty good because they are together and when we just had our chi mix she doesn't mind the kids next door keep her company during the day
My pup has to stay home alone about 8 1/2 hours on the days that I work. He is two and handles it really well. He never really stayed home alone that long until he was 1 1/2 though. Before that probably the longest he would be alone was like 5-6 hours max.
We leave our 4 month puppy crated at home while we work, but someone comes to take him out 2x a day to play & potty. He does well but we make sure to take him on a LONG walk when we get home and play lots of fetch. We also try to keep him with us on the weekends.
Our boxer is four years old and we can leave him for up to 10 hours but rarely have to thanks to our schedules. Our average is about 6 hours and he's perfectly content to chill in the room for that amount of time.
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