No dog will choose a yard or a "nice" doghouse over being inside a home with his loved-ones. A dog can be brainwashed into accepting hours in a yard, even a life in a yard, but it is not the free choice of the most social creature on earth.
Unless sick, no dog wants to be alone for long. And no dog prefers a yard to a home. AAS has not once, in over fifteen years of dog rescue, had a dog that did not want to be in the house. We have even had wolf hybrids that have spent all their lives outside, and within a few days, they are in the house, sleeping on a soft couch, and digging in their feet if we try to get them outside just to relieve themselves, in fear that the door will be closed on them.
Yard dogs bark and howl and cry, which makes enemies of the neighbours, some of whom may decide to poison the dog. Yard dogs escape out of boredom, get hit by cars, poop on the neighbours' property, chase cats, and frighten old people and children.
Yard dogs dig and chew in boredom and out of anxiety. Loud noises frighten them. Passers-by can frighten them and make them react with aggression. The very best way to ruin a nice dog, and turn it into a public danger, is to isolate it, and to subject it to stimuli that it can't do anything about.
It is the common experience of real dog-lovers that even when you are outside, gardening for example, many dogs will join you - for awhile - and then go back into the house and the couch.
Even leaving the dog in the yard when you are at work, means you and your dog are nuisances to the neighbourhood.
A howling, barking, crying dog is begging to be allowed to be inside with its family. It craves the physical and emotional comfort of the home. It craves the safety of the home from rain and storms and strangers and loud noises. A back door gouged by claws is a sign of a dog that is desperately trying to dig its way back into the home and family it is barred from.
An open door during the day (only when you are home to stop the dog from disturbing the neighbours with barking) so the dog has the freedom to come and go inside and outside, is ideal.
The answer to our question, "When is it okay to leave a dog in a yard with the door shut?" is Never.
Rocky the wolf cross, a Surrey yard dog, where every dog wants to be, on the couch, with his family and friends!