Hi.. I have an 18 week old black lab and she has been crate trained from the very start and loves her crate. It is left open during the day and she is locked in it at night. At the moment she goes to bed totally fine in it and sleeps through til about 5-6am and then she wakes me with her "toilet" yelp so I let her out. When she has finished I just leave her with the run of the kitchen ( which is where her crate is ) and she goes back to sleep until we get up. I dont lock her back in as before she just would not settle back down. I am now beginning to think that over the last week she is using going to the toilet as an excuse to get out of her crate as when she goes outside now she will just lay down outside and when she finally goes she then just bolts back inside to curl up on the kitchen floor. What I want to know is should I just leave the crate open for her during the night now and not bother locking her in ....I eventually want to replace her crate with a her bed/ box....my sister who is a vet and dog trainer is moaning at me saying that I should be making her go back into her crate and not letting her sleep for the rest of the night on the floor as she "now knows that a bark and wee will get her out"......any ideas ?? Is she old enough to come out of her crate and for me to replace it with her bed....