Our recognize our cars and even BIKES from way down the block. And Chili howls hello to daddy. It's normal. Ours sleep all day when we're home.

Ours recognize the sound of both of our cars in the driveway and coming down the street. Just sayin'...

They're very smart! I know when my hubby will be pulling in about a minute or so because they both all of a sudden wake up out of dead sleep with their ears all perked up and they're totally concentrating on what they hear!

We leave Amber in her crate while we are both at work. My wife leaves around 8:30 and I come home around 6. There have been a few times when I have been late and she has been in there until almost 8pm. These times are far and few between but she seems completly unphased. Her crate is a good place where she loves to be. We leave her with all her toys and some treats and have never had any issues. She only has to be in there about 2-3 times during the week. My wife works from home 2 days a week and I'm off during 1 day during the week. It works out good and we never have to worry about her safety.

She loves the crate so much shes in there right now with the door open being a lazy bum.

So glad he found a friend! That's so what he needed! If you become good friends with them, maybe they could babysit while you're away. If not, crating for 8 hrs is fine. I've done it plenty of times with my two. When I first read that you left him out of the crate I was thinking "is she nuts!" lol. My two would probably destroy my house if left alone for hours. They are good when we are home to watch them and they are good in our bedroom at night, but I've seen the damage they can do if I'm not watching like eating the bottom of a cabinet door or ripping all the wallpaper off the bottom of the cabinet (and there were two different cabinets!).

Thanks for all of the input! It's been helpful and set my mind at ease.

Another crating issue is that we have been moving Drake's crate to our bedroom at night so he can sleep with us...although we've left the crate door open he's never ventured out at night or jumped in bed with us. My husband has been sleeping in the guest room for a week because Drake disturbs him at night (He dreams a lot and makes a lot of noise in the crate). I feel like it's important for him to sleep in the room with us because it will create some sort of bond, but I can't exactly choose the dog over my husband's comfort and force him to start sleeping in another room...

Any suggestions? I guess we're going to have to move his crate to another room but I hate that he'll be alone all night.

Oh I'm bad for finding that funny (that he keeps your husband awake). lol. What kind of noises does he make? Barking or scratching his feet on the crate? If it's just scratching, you could try keeping him in your bedroom with no crate and just a dog bed in whatever corner he chooses. Or leaving him out in his crate alone is perfectly fine. That's how mine were until recently, because we couldn't trust them loose in our room (they were still crazy puppies) and they would make so much noise in their crates. I swear Elara would wake up at some crazy early hour and just walk in circles making as much noise with her nails on the crate as possible, cause she knew it would wake me up. I'm the one who had to say no girls + crates in the bedroom! I was loosing sleep! But they are fine now just sleeping on their dog beds and our bed.

If he does end up sleeping in your bedroom, just wait until he finds his way of waking you up in the morning! lol. Siku does it by walking to my side of the bed and licking me in the face and Elara does it by jumping on the bed and putting her cold nose on me!

Same here, Sara! We started leaving Kody un-crated at night a while back because he would just make so much noise in there and I couldn't sleep. We took the chance of letting him sleep loose in our bedroom and he's done fine. Except that once they wake me up in the morning, I let them out potty, and fed them, and I want to go back to bed. He'll protest by eating the covers So I've started putting him in the crate from 6am till 7am and he does fine.

Oh the wake up calls! Ha! I get Kody laying on my head licking my face and Mya squeezing herself under my arm and licking my face from the other side. THEN they proceed to start play fighting right on top of me! Why can't they do that to my hubby? Nooooooo, it's always mommy!

The solution (for now) has been to move his crate into our large walk-in closet (which doesn't seem so large anymore with a huge crate in there....we have to squeeze by just to get our clothes!). This seems to put enough distance between us and him that it doesn't seem to bother my husband as much. We do leave the door open but he doesn't come out in the middle of the night...I keep hoping he'll jump into bed with us but that hasn't happened. He did with one of the fosters, but maybe that's because she has a small dog who also slept on the bed with her...

Anyway, that seems to have taken care of the issue for now. Eventually I'd like to only use the crate when we leave the apartment. For the most part keep the door closed during the day and only let him in at night and that usually forces him to be a little more social.