Why I use a crate for Ilsa when I'm not home:
1. She is a food snatcher - she always has been. If she gets a craving for something naughty, she will hop up on countertops, open refridgerators and cabinets, and has even been spotter opening her Vittles Vault. She does not understand the meaning of "portion control", so she will eat until she bursts. I dont' want to come home to a dead dog - not from overeating, not from an obstruction, and not from some sort of toxicity.
Why I use a crate for Ronin when I'm not home:
1. He's got separation anxiety - I once left him out while I went somewhere, and my neighbors said he howled and whined and cried the whole time. I came home to a bloody, shaking, frantic, panicked, and VERY upset dog - he'd gone crazy with worry, and that drove him to chew his feet, run his nose on the dooframe, bite the doorknob, and pace for a good two hours. I LOVE MY BOY, and I don't want to put him through that again. He's fine if he's in a crate, next to Big Sister Ilsa. My neighbors say that they can't hear a peep from him, and I come home to a well rested a happy dog.
They can be left loose together for short amounts of time (say, over a trip to the grocery store) but not much longer - I have a glass patio door that I'm paranoid will pop outof its grooves if they hit it too hard, and I frequently have people come up to my patio and try to get in.. thinking my apartment is someone else's, or the front door to the complex... depending on how drunk they are. (This is a college town).