She's still young. I can remember those days with Jackson lol... I got him at 9 weeks old. I tried the crate thing - he was a very determined pup. I can remember riding with him in the car in the crate (I was planning on having him in crate for car rides)... about a week worth of car rides and him SCREAMING, I lost that battle. After a few weeks of sleeping with a soft crate ON my bed (literally on my bed), one night I decided to just leave the door open for him... it was the first night he slept through the night, didn't make one peep once, so the rest is history... as they say.
I was lucky in the sense that he's always been pretty trustworthy though. I would leave him in an ex-pen when I was away from the house, then we graduated to my bedroom gated in, etc. He got free roam of the whole house by like 6 months. Never chewed anything, etc while I was gone. I never worried about him at night... he's a bigger boy, so even at 6 months, he was already 12lbs and could easily get on/off the bed.
I guess it's just a matter of what you prefer. I kind of always knew I wanted a dog in my bed so I didn't worry too much about night-time crate time. I just wanted him to be potty trained and come to find out, he was trustworthy overnight. Now as a pup, I was getting up very early and taking him out etc... but I know people who have 4lb and 5lb dogs that sleep with them. I wouldn't worry much about hurting them. They're smart and will move out of the way if they feel they are going to get hurt. |