[SarahandElisha]

Jesse is almost one and a half. He is a rescue dog. When we first got him, he loved his crate. Was in there all day, even when the door was open. We would close the door at night and he wouldn't make a peep until we let him out.

As time goes on, he is coming out of his shell and becoming closer and more comfortable with my boyfriend and me. He sleeps by our feet during the evening, or watches TV on the couch with us. He hangs out on the kitchen floor when we are cooking, or under a dining room chair when we are eating. He still naps in his crate often. When we take him to friends' or families' homes, we bring his softsided, folding crate, so that he can have recluse in a strange place (especially because there are a lot of kids in my boyfriend's family, and they are hyper and frighten him).

The past several nights, he has become unhappy in his crate. He has started whining to get out. One part of me really wants him thoroughly crate trained and wants to just let him cry until he realizes that he has to sleep in his crate. Another part of me wants to let him have free roam in our bedroom at night. The past couple of nights we have left his crate open, because we haven't had the energy for the whining. He has slept through the night, spending most of it in his crate even with the door open. He hasn't had any accidents that I know of (definitely no pooh, but it's been a busy week babysitting my boyfriend's niece an nephew while their parents are taking a small vacation, so I haven't had time to do a thorough pee check, but there's nothing obvious).

We are pretty excited and think that we may as well just start leaving his crate open at night. He seems to sleep there for most of the night, and he's not making a mess. Maybe in a while we will replace the crate with a bed.

Still, I can't help but wonder if this will be a mistake. He is rarely crated during the daytime. He comes to work with me, and has free roam of the apartment when we are home at night. The only time he's crated during the day is if we go somewhere that he's not allowed, such as grocery shopping or out to dinner. I worry that if he's rarely crated during the day, and now never at night, he might totally freak out when we do need to close him in the crate during the day.

Any advice would be really appreciated.

Sarah