Proper Housing For A Working Dog?

My GSD was crated at night till 6 months old, and now he's 2 and has been out of the crate when I leave the house for the last month or so. But he's a calm relaxed dog most of the time, sometimes he gets mischevious though, I try and keep anything food related out of reach and he's confined to one room not the entire house unless I'm home. When I'm home he's never in the crate except feeding time.

My dutchie pup, well, she'll probably be a crate dog for the rest of her life LOL! Nah, I don't know what she'll be like as she matures, but as a pup she's in the crate most of the time except for play/training/potty times. Both dogs sleep in the bedroom at night, the GSD wherever he wants, the pup in a crate. During the day I sometimes stick her in an exercise pen so she as some more roaming freedom without getting into everything. She's actually pretty good at leaving stuff alone that isn't hers to touch, she's very focused on whatever toy I let her play with at playtime, she usually carries it over to the bean bag n lays down to chew it.

HAHA! I'm suddenly reminded of how I became aquainted with crate training in the first place. Let me see if I can tally the wreckage from my last dog, a rescued pit bulldog bitch:

1 completely devoured CD.

2 Shredded DVD's(including A Charlie Brown Chirstmas...I never forgave her for that!)

1 dog bed turned into mulch spread throughout my living room.

4 unrecognizable pillows.

1 half-eaten door.

1 futon turned into post-modern art.

All of this for the $50 or so adoption fee from the humane society. lol

Seriously though, I had never before owned a dog with any kind of behavioral issues so I was completely naive about crate training. My g/f was kind enough to show me the error of my ways and wound up saving me lots of money. :lol:

My three are all house dogs. However, all three are crate trained and Buck adores his and takes naps and sleeps in there all the time. I don't need to shut the doors anymore. Not that I could with Zoso (short of getting a really expensive aluminum one) because he's broken down the doors of 3 plastic crates and 1 wire one. :roll: During the day when we're off at work, they share the basement with the ferret where their crates are but at night, they are allowed to sleep either in the basement, kitchen, or living room so Zoso and Strider can alert us to anything odd (Buck, despite his rather ferocious appearance, would rather run and hide in his crate than attack an intruder). They are not allowed into the hallway that goes to the office, the master bedroom, etc. They are not allowed on the couch either. Our landlord told us he wouldn't mind if we put up a small kennel under the deck, but eh...I prefer to have them as house dogs so they don't become nuisance barkers and so they can guard what is inside the house, not guard the yard. Plus they would probably have barking contests with the poor lab mix who lives outside the house behind us who is tied out all day long in the 100 degree heat.