Crate this!!

[Paula & Greg]

The great crate debate... Here we are anticipating this new puppy in our little town home south of Denver. In one of the 30 or 40 questions I ask the breeder, I try to figure out what kind of crate to buy. She initially crate trains the puppies and highly recommends that we follow through with crate training when we get home.

Now I've never done this before...we always just house trained our dogs by taking them out frequently and leaving lots of newspapers around (disadvantage of getting news over internet - no newspapers). But we decide to take the trip to PetsMart and get the 'large wire crate' recommended by the breeder. This is one of those that evidently folds up. We thought we could take it in the Trooper when we travel, set it up in motel rooms, etc. We walk to the back of the store where the crates are, and pull out the 'large' box. I grab on to the box, and pull, and pull and pulll...the thing is four feet long by nearly three feet high! Well, our TV room, where we wanted to put this thing is only about 13x14. And this is gonna be a permanent fixture?

I suggest that we could put a blanket on it and replace the ottoman in front of our love seat, or maybe the end table. Might look nice with a lamp on it and some books... But the puppy is so little. Why do we need a wire box the size of desk to house break him, I wonder aloud.

'Lets get the medium one, use it until he can't get in, then get the big one,' I suggest.

'But I really don't want to buy two crates,' she says.

'It really would make a nice coffee table,' I suggest. It's funny how a roll of the eyes can communicate so well...

Then thinking that 4' is not really that big she says, 'Here is a 4ft dog bed. See, it's not as big as the box. The box must be bigger than the crate!'

'Now why would the box be bigger than the crate? It's just as big as the bottom of the crate'

'No, it's bigger. There must be foam inside!'

'Look," I take one out of the box, 'It's as big as the box.'

'So,' she says, 'you're telling me that I can't tell the difference between a 4' bed and a 4' wire crate?'

I know now that I am in very deep water... We try to move on from comparing beds with crates, and agree that the medium size might work out for at least the first year. I start to carry it out: 40 lbs of awkward box.

Seeing my struggle and weighing again the $85, Paula says, "Maybe there are other options. Maybe we could make a 'cave' like, hiding space between the chair and love seat that we could rig up as a crate. Let's do some measuring and think about it."

This makes sense to me, and I'm desperately looking for something that makes sense, so I take the 40lb box back to the rack and slide it in, breaking up a conversation between a puppy owning family and a PM trainer... ("Maybe you should not all give the puppy its command to sit at the same time...")

We decide that a burger and beer make more sense than figuring out dog crates for the time being, and head to Rock Bottom...

So now we're struggling with how to fit a large dog crate into a town home while still maintaining the "home" part

This is where you guys come in.... We need your help and experience. How does this crate thing work for our labradoodle training in smaller living environments? Ideas? Suggestions? Stories? We need everything we can get...

Greg

[Lucy & AnnaBelle's Mom]

Many people keep the crate in a room other than the living room. We used 2 things. The crate and ours wasn't huge, and we also purchased the playpen or exercise pen which can be used in various shapes. Doesn't have a top or a bottom. We used this a great deal when the puppies (yes, 2 puppies) first came home. If we couldn't keep our eyes on them constantly, they went in the exercise pen. We placed rubber backed rugs on the floor, followed by a blanket, and then the pen on top of the blanket. Put the puppies and some toys in there and they just played happily. I still use this when we travel and are spending the night at someones home for them to sleep in. It was also a lifesaver when Sophie tore a ligament in her knee and had to be kept quiet for 6 weeks. Whatever size crate you buy, you want it to have a divider in it that is moveable as the puppy grows. Because for potty training purposes you don't want to give the puppy anymore space than it needs to turn around in. Given more space, it will potty on one end and stay on the other. You can also find used ones on Craigslist and places like that. So, in your case you might want to start a little smaller and then sell that one and move up as the dog grows. 4' sounds pretty big to me though! Depending on your puppy you might find after the potty training stage is over that you will be able to give free run of the townhome and not need a crate. There are those puppies though that take quite a long time to earn free run as they like to eat anything they can get their little teeth on and the most important thing is to keep the puppy safe when you can't watch him/her and that is where the crate comes in.

[Nancy, Ned, Clancy, and Charlie]

Get a smaller doodle. LOL!