Dog chewing

Question
QUESTION: I have a six month old male Schnoodle.  He is generally a very good puppy, was easy to house train.  He was trained by the time he was 3-4 months old.  He picked up on commands very easy (sitting, shaking, bedtime etc.).  He is a very smart puppy.  The one issue we have with him is that he constantly gets into things and chews whatever he can when we leave him alone.  We put most things up and close the bathroom door etc. but you can't have everything out of his reach.  As soon as I get my shoes, he cries and yelps like crazy.  Almost like he has bad anxiety.  Everytime I come home he has found something to get into.  It could be shoes, papers, water bottles.  He will chew the mats at the front door.  Before I started closing the bathroom door, he would upset the garbage, chew it and string it through the house, get into the toilet paper and paper towel.  I'm not sure what to do about it but have to do something because it is super annoying to come home to a mess everytime we leave him alone.  This has been an issue ever since we got him.

ANSWER: Thanks for your email, Tina.  You need to crate train your puppy.  You can't expect a dog this age to know what's his and what's not when he's not supervised.  It's likely not anxiety, but boredom that's causing his chewing.  This is all typical puppy behavior.  Crating or using an exercise pen for confinement when you're not home will do the trick.

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QUESTION: Thank you for your reply.  How long do you think we would need to crate train him?

Answer
How old will he be before you don't have to crate him?  That depends on the dog.  I had a husky who had to be crated until she was 8 years old.  She loved to get into stuff and I couldn't trust her.  I've had other dogs that only needed crating until they were about a year old.