I am generally a fan of crating. My Moka is now 5 years old and she's so laid back and mellow that she's fine being left out. I'm sure she mostly sleeps when I am away. When allowing one more and more freedom we just started for short periods of time and gradually got longer and longer. We also blocked of several rooms so her freedom was somewhat restricted. Then we got Mylee. She refuses to be crated and has always done well being left out to roam with Moka. Moka is the ideal babysitter dog. Mylee feeds off her ques anyways, so if Moka lays down to sleep, so does Mylee. LOL. If anything ever happened to Moka, poor Mylee would be so lost. What works for one seldom works for everyone though, so you have to experiment until you find what works best for your situation.
__________________ Shelly and the girls  Moka Mylee |