bringing a new dog into your home..

[Shmee]

You guys are making crate training out like it's a barbaric sort of thing. It's not really. Dogs do very well in confined spaces for moderate lengths of time. When their in their crates, they will tend to sleep if their left to themselves. The real to trick to the crate is getting one that's exactly sized for your pet, if it's too big, you'll have problems with the puppy relieving itself in one end or the other. The dog should be able to goto the back of the crate and turnaround and that's it as far as roominess is concerned. Face it, we aren't always going to be home to watch our dogs. When they're puppies, you're simply asking for trouble if you let them roam around unsupervised. Once the dog matures abit where it can hold it's bowels and bladder then you're able to loosen up the crate time. It's not uncommon for some dogs to be very fond of their crates and they look forward to going to sleep in them at nite. The dogs point of view is not our own folks, they have a different operating system then we do and crates, to them, equal security and confine. They like that, not all the time of course, but it comes in handy for the inquisitive pup.
If the dog your getting is already an adult, and NOT previously crate trained, I don't know if I would attempt a radical change like that, but if it's a puppy, then sure give it the ole' college try. The first day will test patience abit, but don't discount the effort, it really will be worth it in the long run of things.

Goodluck and enjoy your new dog!

-Shmee

[Dangels]

I've never been a person who liked the idea of crate training, so i've never crate trained any of my dogs in the past. I'm not totally against it, but it's not something that i've ever really been totally comfortable with either.

However, when I adopted my APBT puppy, Jager, from a friend a couple months back.... he was already totally crate trained, and he seemed to enjoy being in his crate. So, I still crate him sometimes when no one is home and at night if he starts getting into things, and it works very well. Especially since he's not 100% housebroken quite yet. So, I am finding it quite helpful with Jager in my current situation. I'm sure that when he gets a little older, and is totally housebroken, he will not be crated at all.