Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
I've always crated my pup the first night I brought them home. I have crates in all sizes and always start out w/ a small one and move up as the pup grows. Too big of a crate will give the pup one end to soil and the other to sleep. I cushion it up w/ blankets and have never had one soil their crate. Of course I always got up in the middle of the night for potty breaks. I do not like wee wee pads because it makes it much harder to teach them to go outside.
we crate trained our first dog and now she has free use of the house
our current pup is going through crate training - she doesn't fight it like the first one does and accepts it as a necessary part of her routine
at night she gets a blanket and during the day just a safe, durable chew - we've tried blankets when we leave the house and they get destroyed, even if we are only gone for an hour
we are going to try and figure out a way to secure some things for nights to hopefully free that up soon
at first we tried to keep her in the bathroom with newspaper down, some toys and water ...... she tore that up every day and started to tear up the door/trim - so the crate was about the only option
we've started to leave her free on trips less than 30 minutes and so far the only real casualties have been our fault (like leaving the bathroom door open so she can get into the bathroom garbage)
she's very energetic and really doesn't know when to stop - she goes after our cat pretty hard and plays too much with our established dog
right now I don't think it would be safe to leave her, my other dog and my cat unsupervised for 8 hours - someone would get hurt before too long
she's a handful, but generally tries to do the right thing - she accepts training, but likes to forget the command shortly after obliging to it - we call her our special needs pup because I think she's a little off kilter
anyhow, although i hate putting her in the crate, it's by far the best option for this dog at this age
i've always used a crate that will work at an adult age and just divided it with boxes - if you are using boxes make sure to secure them - didn't have an issue with the first dog, but this one found a way to somehow change positions with the boxes and end up at the back of the crate
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
