How to prevent barking when left alone outside?

[Labradorks]

What's worse? A dog that is crated for 8 hours or a dog that is left outside for 8 hours? If you had to pick one or the other?

I see more dogs in rescue with issues from being left outside than crated. However, most people that gave up their dogs never crated them in the first place, so it's probably a bad comparison. It does speak volumes though!

As a side note, I am not advocating for long-term (in this case, 8 hours, crating). I don't want the OP to read this and think that crating is bad or that being outside is a better alternative.

[Annette47]

What's worse? A dog that is crated for 8 hours or a dog that is left outside for 8 hours? If you had to pick one or the other?

If I had to pick, I’d absolutely pick the crating, but since most puppies are also crated at night, then that makes 2/3 of their time spent in a tiny area, which is why I advocate for different, indoor arrangements for longer times. For a couple hours? Or especially for the brief periods mentioned by the OP? then absolutely crate them!

[MightyThor]

We were lucky with Thor and training him to be outside. We both work from home and our house has a doggy door that opens into a fully enclosed back yard.

While is is 100% true that a lab would much rather be with their people than alone, we slowly allowed Thor free reign of the house and yard when we were working. He'd spend 90% of his time with one of us but occasionally he'd wander off. The key thing for us was having Dropcams installed. So, when he wasn't in one of our offices we could watch him wander and sniff, and the moment he appeared to be getting into something he shouldn't we could give him a stern no. (our house and yard is pretty small and he can hear us everywhere). He really was supervised the whole time he thought he had freedom. I would NOT have been comfortable allowing him that freedom if we weren't within a few feet of him and able to supervise via Dropcam.

After a while of that, and seeing how he behaved with that freedom, we'd leave for short periods (and still monitor the dropcam from our phones). Now (at 1.5 years old) I feel like I can trust him completely with his back yard access and free reign of the house. He hasn't gotten into anything since the Christmas decorations last December (my fault for introducing such a tasty looking tree to his regular environment). But it took a long time with a type of supervision that I think would be difficult for a lot of people.

During puppyhood and the transition period he was always crated when we couldn't supervise.

[fidgetyknees]

Dogs are pack animals, they don't want to be left outside alone, they want to be with their pack. Bring her inside.

I don't like long periods of crating either, but I am lucky that my husband has a work from home job, so the dogs get to stretch and play a couple of times a day outside. The puppy is the only one who is crated, the elderly pug get an xpen because of potty issues, and the other 2 adult labs get the run of the house .... which means they sleep on the couch all day. When we were.both working office jobs the dogs would have a bedroom to themselves out of a crate.