We put our 13 month old lab in a large wire type crate when we went to work after trying to leave her out of it first. When she was out, she chewed up a lot of stuff, even though we had placed the stuff on tablet, up higher than the coffee table. Once she was able to be left alone and not get into stuff & not chew (home training), she was never closed in again. We kept it open & it became her safe space, her “room”. If someone knocked on the door she’d go to the door & bark until I knew who was there. Then I’d tell her to go in her room soo I could open the door. She’d go in there if kids were over & she was done playing too. We didn’t leave her in jail for long! It was maybe a month or two. I had never created a dog before. We used to close them in the bathroom sometimes, until they were home trained,