Crating Puppies

[marcella]

Crating puppies as we know is a good thing to do, for the safety of your pup as well as giving them the security of having their own wee space
But what I am curious to hear is what you all think is an 'acceptable' amount of time to leave them in there crates for. Obviously if they sleep in them then night time and/or if your pup is left alone whilst you are at work. But for how long??????
Do you think crating a puppy is detrimental to them in any way? Does it prevent them from developing in your opinion? Or is it simply sensibility and security for a puppy?

I'd like to hear your opinions!

[Suzanne St]

Think i depends how sociable you want you puppy to be. Two of the dogs i have where only out of there create for a few hours a day they came from a breeder. The thing is they have the run of my house and still love there create

[Janice]

Apart from night time when he was at the chewing stage, Dale's never been left for more than about one to two hours. He loves his crate and was used to playing in and out of his mother's crate before he came to us. I can't see any problems with it, but maybe I don't use it properly. The door is hardly ever closed.
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Janice and Dale

[Arlene]

Rusty is only left in his cage at night and for a few hours if we are out. I think if you send a dog to their cage as a punishment then it is not ' their wee space '. If you you a cage i like a wee safety den

[marcella]

that's right Arlene you can never use it as a punishment.
Janice leaving the door open is not a bad idea either because that way they can use it freely which again just reinforces the positive aspects of the crate. Mine will wander in and out of there's when I leave them open in the garden during the summer months.

[Karen]

i used mine when they were really young for during the night and sleep time during the day in between feeding and play but i didnt use it after they were about 5 months old,

[Nicola]

Crating a young puppy during the night and when you're out is a great thing to to, in my opinion.

It has many benefits including teaching them to wait for the toilet (as they don't usually like to toilet where they sleep and where they have to lie down!), keeps them safe from chewing wires/furniture etc, and also helps them feel secure and secure as a new house can be very daunting for them. However, it was never my intention to use the crate for all of her life and I never used the crate for punishment.

I used a crate up until Molly was 7 months old - she was spayed at 6 months old and I kept it up until after she had fully recovered from her operation, she was fully toilet trained by then aswell. She also didn't chew anything she wasn't supposed to, or even attempt to, so we thought we'd try her out of the crate while we were out - only for one or two hours at a time to start with. The first time we did this we left her in the kitchen with her bed. She was absolutely fine. She didn't destroy anything or do the toilet. We asked the neighbour to keep an ear open for her, she barked a couple of times then she was quiet. So this was a complete success.

Then after a week or so of leaving her out the crate durng the day, we started leaving her out it at night, again we put her in the kitchen with her bed. Not a noise out of her at all. Again, a success.

The crate was still up at this point, and when we were in she could go in and out it as she pleased, it was in the living room. She went in and out it occasionally, and had snoozes in it, aswell as in her bed.

Then after another week, we took the crate down and put it away. At first, she lay on the floor where the crate was but this stopped after a few days.

At this point, Molly had the kitchen and living room to herself and night and while we were out for a few months. Then before she was a year old she had the run of the house as they both do now. No accidents, no chewing and no noise.

So the way we used the crate worked very well for Molly and i'd definately use it again.

[Dan McK]

We got 1 for Tess and she likes it. She's never really in it for more than an hour with the door shut. We bought it for the car but brought it into the house to get her used to it, but she liked it so much we keep it in the house for her. We're even noticing the old yin getting into it more and more and she never had a crate till we got Tess's.

So here's a question, should we stop the old girl (Towsie) using Tess's crate? Tess regularly goes to Towsie's bed and they swap and change. But if the crate's meant to be Tess's own space, should we stop Towsie using it?
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Parsons Russell fanatic

[Nicola]

Dan,

If, Tess is happy about Towsie using her crate then i'd just leave them be. If they are both happy to chop and change crates/beds as they see fit, i'd just leave them to it.

[Dan McK]

That's what we've been doing, and not really having any probs, just neverr used a crate before so wasnt sure of the do's and dont's. But they both seem happy enough in each others space.
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Parsons Russell fanatic

[Nicola]

Sounds fine to me, Dan. I'd just leave them to get on with it then. You'll know if they don't like playing swapsies! And you'll know too!

[marcella]

yeah, if they are happy then why change.

[Susan]

It is really good to read how everyone has used the cages. We were going to get one for Rufus, (I posted about his 'wild week' where he destroyed everything he could find!) but he seems to have stopped that, so I'm not sure whether to bother with one now or not.

There is no issue at night, because he sleeps in our room and we are fine with that. I know this is looked on as a huge 'don't' by some people, but from the first night we got him, we let him in our bed, and because he saw it as his sleeping area, and because he was too wee to jump down, we never had any accidents. The first few weeks he would wake me up in the night by licking me and I knew to take him out! But he started sleeping through quite quickly. We have been able to move him down to his bed on the floor with no trouble or crying, and he now seems to treat the whole bedroom as his 'den' because there have never been any accidents in there at all. (He is not totally housetrained yet, and will still have little slip ups every couple of days in other parts of the house!)

Other than that, he is left in the kitchen from about 8.30 till noon every weekday, and he did rip up the lino/tip over the bin/find his way into the airing cupboard, but that seems to have settled down now. (thank goodness!)

So yeah...that was my round about way of saying that we are dithering over whether to go for a cage now or not, as we are not sure he needs it, but we do like the idea of him having a safe place of his own! I think Santa will either be bringing him a new bed or a cage!

[kirsty]

I got my two as grown dogs, but would def use a crate if I were to have a puppy. Its a strange thing that - them swapping beds - we have two really large beds, but bobs is slightly bigger, Dodge decides very much where he wants to sleep and has taken over bobs bed at present. Why do they do this? is it a dominance thing. Bob is the more dominant dog, but he lets Dodge away with murder in all ways - Dodge is always at the middle of any troublemaking or giving bob a hard time and bob just puts up with it - why is this? if bob is the more dominant dog.

sorry for butting into this crate thread, but I just wanted to ask about why they swap beds

[Janice]

Does anyone continue to use a crate with adult dogs? I want Dale to stay in the kitchen at night and it has three doors and two walk in cupboards so there aren't any cosy corners for a bed. He' s using the crate as his den and settles so well there that I've just left him with it. Also if I stopped using it in the house would he still be happy there on holiday? This year we had it in the caravan awning and it worked really well , somewhere he be undisturbed.
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Janice and Dale