Where to keep the crate?

[Puppy Madness]

I am anxiously awaiting my puppy's homecoming in 3 weeks.  While waiting, I am trying to get as ready as possible.

Where do you keep your crate? Does it move to different locations? Does this change based on age of the dog?

I want to keep the crate in the dining/living room so that my puppy's close to outside when needing a bathroom break but also because I spend much of my time in those two rooms. 

My bedroom is upstairs. I want the puppy to sleep in the room with me, but I'm not sure how to make this work. Do I get a second crate? Move the crate up during at night? Or just use a plastic storage bin as a "temporary kennel" until the puppy's house trained?  I'm not planning on getting a dog bed right away until I can figure out if the puppy will chew, urinate, or just not use the bed.

Thanks in advance for your advice!

[Nancy and Georgia Brown]

I bought a small/medium crate off of craigslist knowing I would be reselling it shortly after. I was able to sell it for the same amount I bought it for.

The small crate was great because it was easy to move from one room to another. Also easy to put in the car if I wanted to visit a friend for the afternoon and wanted to bring my dog but not have to stress about their carpet etc.

She graduated to the larger crate pretty quickly but by then she was house trained so I kept it in the bedroom.

Now at 4.5 months she seldom uses it except when I leave the house for more than 3 hours. I may be selling it on craigslist shortly.

[J and Riley (and Luna)]

We kept our crate in our bedroom at night and it was in the kitchen inside an ex-pen during the day while we were at work.

It was a giant pain in the butt and I'd definitely recommend 2 crates :p 

[Lucy & Ellie]

We brought our pup home a few weeks ago and I had wondered the same thing as we were planning for her arrival!

We have the same situation - our bedroom is upstairs but we needed a crate downstairs where we spend our time during the day.  We went ahead and got two crates.  I'm glad we did - I would not want to mess with moving it up and down every day.

Good luck!

[Pam Thomas]

My breeder told me to buy a 36 inch crate which I did. I want to put one in the bedroom for night-do I just by a travel crate or a regular crate. I also am looking in to the round or square white pens to put up for when I am at work-what is best?

[Hua]

I have two crates, one in my bedroom and one by the kitchen/dinning room, plus dog bed/matt in pretty much every room.  Although Charlie hasn't been using the crates much since I started letting him sleep on my bed. 

[Kelly & Zoe]

Ha!  Same with us.  Zoe's a bed hog.  We too have blankets and mats in just about every room -