simmo

It is interesting reading everyones views on this. Our pup will only be left for 2-3 hours a day outside tho not all day as i am at home most of the day. At the moment he is a very quiet gentle pup and we have no worries about leaving him with our maltese but as he gets bigger we will monitor their play and if need be we will separate them when noone is at home.

Thanks for all your replies. It makes me feel better to know im not a bad dog owner after all. Ben has a kennel, water, toys and he is undercover. The yard is a square of grass with no plants at all and a 6 foot fence all round and padlocked gates at either side so i think he will be fine. As he will grow so quick i personally think this will be better than keeping him in a crate while we are out and he hates being locked in a room, so i think he will be happier outside.

We're thinking we might put the maltese back in the bathroom when we are not home which is where she has always been. Ben the boxer hates beeing shut in a room as the first 2 nights we had him we put him in the laundry room and he howled and barked all night. The night we put him in the crate he slept all night without a sound. He is a very quiet puppy who sleeps all day and i have to actually get him to play otherwise he wouldn't. Im sure that will change tho as he gets older. He seems to like being outside as he was outside at the breeders house with all his other dogs. He has loads of toys and a kong to play with. I will put some pictures up when i have worked out how to do it. Thanks for your comments.

We have a 9 week old boxer puppy and a 8 month old maltese cross silky. The boxer sleeps in a crate in our room at night but i dont like the idea of leaving him in his crate while we are out. We have been leaving them both in our back yard for the past week and the boxer sees quite happy. We have only a large square of grass with no plants for him to eat. Im not working so they will only be out there for a few hours a day and also when we go out with the kids at weekends. They have beds and water and we are going to get a large kennel for them. Really i just want reasurance that this is ok for the boxer. I mentioned it on a site for boxers which i think is American and they went mad and mad me feel like a really bad dog owner. What do you guys think?