<p>I prefer the freedom to roam a small area vs. chained to a run. We have a few people who drive up our dirt road and some barking but we can handle it.</p>
<p>Invisible fences have some advantages, but IMO should be used for short outside activities (like when doggie needs to go out but owner doesn’t want to walk him/her) It’s great for that. In addition to the problem with the batteries dying and the dog leaving the yard, the bigger problem is that other dogs and humans can easily get *into the yard. We know if someone whose dog was stolen from their yard and another whose dog was attacked by a bigger dog that was loose in the neighborhood. Electric fences are also not so great for hounds and some other breeds that will bolt through to chase after something and tolerate the “corection” (aka shock) from the collar.</p>
<p>Our two dogs are just part of the family. They were never crated and sleep at night in our bedroom. The three year old Great Dane sleeps on a big easy chair and the six year old Labradoodle sleeps on the cedar chest at the foot of the bed. During the day, they have full access to the house and the Great Dane lounges on the couch in the family room. They have a doggy door for a need to go outside. They tend to stay inside. My wife takes them on a four mile walk daily.</p>
<p>We have a doggie door, so our pooch can roam inside and out. But we have blocked her from going upstairs into any of the bedrooms and into the living room. She has a habit of stealing shoes and underwear as trophies.</p>
<p>I stay at home, so I am in and out all day.</p>
<p>Works great for my tree walking coon hound who LOOOOOOOOOOVES to chase deer! She HATES the shock and won’t run through it if her life depended on it.</p>
<p>My two poodles are crated whenever I am not with them (ages 5 and 3). They behave fine when left alone but I notice they are far less anxious when crated. I have left them in their crates for as long as six hours, but I’d figure out an alternate solution if I had to leave them longer than that. (I’d probably have someone come in and take them for a middle-of-the-day walk.)</p>
<p>However, two of my vet’s assistants crate their dogs for their entire ten hour work day. They feed them breakfast, then take the dogs for an hour of play time before they are crated, then do another hour of play/training when they get home. </p>
<p>The biggest problem with invisible fences is that another animal can come IN–and your dog can’t get away from them.</p>
<p>Many years ago we had a cat door—right up until we discovered that a raccoon was using it to come in and eat the cat’s food. I don’t think that’s a problem with the ones that only open with a radio collar signal.</p>
<p>College DD is a paid pet sitter, she works for a service, I think she is paid around $15/hour for her time. She is trained, first aid certified, does walks & over nights and has complete taxes paid. Not sure how much more the people pay for that time.</p>
<p>I would think a neighborhood teen or senior paid cash could be hired for $10-15 depending on your area.</p>
<p>We have had many dogs in many situations over the years, from 1-4 pets, small yard to massive acreage. With many dogs on large acreage we could let the just stay outside, other situations we had a large chain link kennel.</p>
<p>I find for big dogs, they need to be fed & exercised before being left alone, especially when they are young! Our current dog would rather be in the car than left behind 
Luckily, with a home office, he is almost never alone. Even as an older dog, he needs a good hour of exercise to be calm in the evening, years ago, his exercise had to happen first thing in the morning or we had no peace.</p>
<p>Any one with big dogs does themselves and their dog a big favour by getting the dog out for exercise, preferably off leash running & sniffing, tiring them out for the day ;)</p>
<p>We’ve had a lab and now we have a labradoodle. The labradoodle is much more active than our lab. I generally work at home, so I’m around most of the day. Even though I walk our dog on conservation land where he can run, he needs more exercise than what I give him. I take him to Doggie Day Care two days a week. He spends the day there and comes home exhausted. That’s been a huge help. Doggie day care is fairly common, and it’s a good alternative to leaving dogs out in the yard with the invisible fence. It’s about the same price as a dog walker. I buy a card and pay $21 for a whole day (9am to 6 pm).</p>
<p>My family’s lab stayed home alone with the run of the house when me and my brother were at school/my parents were at work. When we first got her, we tried confining her to one room but she was more likely to find stuff to chew on if she was in one room versus the entire house. She was crated at night for several years, but when she was let outside for the last time before going to bed she used to hide and refuse to come in. When we stopped crating her at night, she came right inside. </p>
<p>When me and my brother both went off to school (me boarding school, him college) the same year, my parents started paying some of the neighborhood kids to let her out, play with her, and feed her when they got home from school. It was a win-win-win situation. The dog loved the kids, they loved the dog, and we had someone to take care of her.</p>
<p>We have a thirteen year old dog pound adopted mutt (basset hound/black and tan coonhound mix…what a handsome boy). </p>
<p>We have never owned a crate. I didn’t work when he was a puppy. </p>
<p>He has always had the run of the house during the daytime (but is trained to stay off furniture). He has always slept in S2’s room at night, usually with the door closed. I guess that could be considered a large crate,lol.</p>
<p>I went back to part-time work six years ago. I am gone five and half hours each day. He is fine. He sleeps a lot. We have often been on weekend day trips and been gone eight hours and he has been fine. We don’t like kennels either so when we go on vacations we get a “dogsitter” or he comes with us. He loves to ride and is very well behaved in the car (no crate).</p>
<p>We have an almost 15 year lab.
When she was young- I would have never left her alone in the house for any length of time. She didn’t chew off the wallpaper, but she did chew pulls on my rolltop desk, shoes, and about anything else that might be a tasty treat.</p>
<p>She is a great dog, and is an old style lab- shorter with a broad chest. Bred for sport, and apparently those dogs stay high energy for many years, which I can attest to.
We got her when I was a stay at home mom, and we took her most places with us and were very grateful to have a house full of college age boys next door who would play with her, when I needed a rest.</p>
<p>Now we take her for lots of short walks. She became very ill before xmas, and had surgery. She has a cot bed in the living room, which we moved from our room, so we could keep a closer eye on her ( although sometimes I still see her on the couch), but she does come in and sleep on my pile of dirty clothes at my side of the bed.</p>
<p>When I started going back to school, in the fall before last, I took her with me, the class had frequent breaks and I could park nearby. I think she preferred that to being left at home, although when it started getting too cold to leave her in the car, she was hurt.</p>
<p>We thought about using a crate and actually got one, but I like having a dog to sleep with.
What I have heard about the shock fences is that they can be motivated to go outside of it, by a cat or a squirrel or an icecream truck, but they aren’t motivated to go back in. ;)</p>
<p>We also have a black lab puppy. He is now 5 months old. We also have a 8 yr old golden. Both were crate trained as puppies. The golden has never been that keen on sleeping inside the house. He is a hunter and the night is his favorite playtime. During prime skunk season I often force him inside since I get tired of bathing him. The puppy does not like sleeping in at night if the other dog is out. At about 4 months we started letting the puppy stay outside. They sleep in the garage with the people door open. When I go out during the day for a few hours I will crate the puppy. I want him to remember the crate as a safe place. The golden I will leave unattended in the house. The puppy has to be watched. We have over 3 acres that is entirely fenced. Both our dogs prefer to be together outside. They entertain each other and we often look outside and see them playing. We do play with them outside and take them on walks but they don’t need the walks for exercise as much as we do. We do have an electric fence. We have not collared or trained the puppy yet. We use it because we have had several labs over the years who like to roam and would dig out of the yard. Also we have a gate that we drive the car in and out of. I don’t want them running out when I drive in or out. I would not trust an electronic fence without a real fence as well.
Granted we live in Ca and dogs can easily stay outside during the day and night.</p>
<p>A co-worker of mine struggled with this issue a bit. Often he took his lab to a doggie day care. It was a large facility, split down the middle - one side for small dogs, one for large. Cool thing was - he could check on his dog during the day on a webcam.</p>
<p>Just to clarify that our puppy does not get any human time.Our black lab puppy has had quite the week so far. It is spring break for the 14 yr old. Yesterday she took him to the beach with a friend and they tried to teach the puppy to surf. Today they taught him to swim in the swimming pool. I think tomorrow they are planning on setting up a agility course using the patio chairs and pool noodles. I think the dogs are going to be thrilled when the girls go back to school!</p>
<p>I can leave our dog alone all day now. He is six years old, and likes to snooze during the day and does not tend to get into mischief. When he was a puppy, he had to be kept in the kitchen if I was gone for more than 6 hours, as did my other dogs as pups. I had the kitchen dog proofed.</p>
<p>I think if you work long days, the type of dog you get should not be a breed wanting a lot of exercise. We have a bulldog which is a lazy breed and two vigorous walks a day does him just fine. A lab would be a different story. Also, I don’t think puppies are a good pick for those who work long hours. Get an older dog whose bladder is strong, is calmer, and not likely to chew and destroy things when unsupervised. They need to be about a year or two to be stable that way, in my experience. I don’t like to lock my dogs in the kennel for more than a few hours, so I had my kitchen set up so that they could stay in there. </p>
<p>If we should get another puppy, it would mean another year or so when someone would have to be home after 4-6 hours even after they are housebroken. ALmost like having a baby.</p>
<p>My dad trained our dog and cat. He was so proud of training the animals to stay off the couch. Bragged about it and all. One day I was upstairs doing homework and quietly walked downstairs with out stirring the sleeping animals. When I heard my dads old Valient coming around the corner and poof boom and scatter all the animals lept from the couch and back to their floor “spots”. Apparently what my dad trained the animals to do was jump off the couch when they heard that old Valient car.</p>
<p>If I was thinking of getting a dog that had to be crated most of the day, and most of the night, I’d choose not to get a dog until I could better meet his needs. My wants are not the only factor for me.</p>
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<p>I would not leave a dog on a chain for a variety of reasons. The kind of dog run I was talking about is a fenced area within which the dog can move freely.</p>
<p>We let our boxer, rescued a couple of years ago at around 3 y/o, have the run of the yard when we’re gone but we have a very large fenced yard full of trees and other things of interest. He doesn’t sit there and bark all day (or at all) to come in or else we wouldn’t do that or we’d attempt to train him not bark to come in. He seems quite content to be in the backyard. He’s usually sleeping on the deck, hunting avocados, or checking out what neigbors might be doing. </p>
<p>We also sometimes leave him in the house where he’s also content and quite good about it - i.e. he doesn’t tear things up or anything. </p>
<p>We did the same with our previous boxer and he was also quite content either way.</p>
<p>As a rule, I don’t trust fences. I have seen some impressive set ups that dogs were able to find a way to circumvent. We had two big black great danes in our old neighborhood, that got out a few times. The owner had invisible fence plus and heavy chain link fence and stone to keep the dogs from going under. All they could do is dig a frigging moat to make it more impermeable. The dogs still found a way out, and what a fright they gave everyone when they got lose.</p>
<p>Our late beagle mix was an escape artist extraordinaire. Fortunately he looked just like Snoopy and wouldn’t scare anyone. But, oh, the trouble he would cause, as he was a thief. We had TWO invisible fence setups and an augmented physical fence. Didn’t matter. He could get out at will. This pup that we currently have does not tend to leave the yard unless he is leashed and with someone. But I still would not leave him in the yard alone all day.</p>