Dog crates are cruel

Yes. Several hours. During which she snores. It's not very exciting.

Once or twice, she's been unhappy and needed a wee or to be sick. Because she sleeps in her doggy prison next to the bed, I've been instantly awake to deal with her at the first whimper, rather than finding the disaster in the kitchen in the morning, as tends to happen with the cats.

Also, the dogs I had before her that I didn’t crate, they were in a small utility room with a baby gate on the door overnight. Utility room so small that actually, we couldn’t fit a large dog crate in there for this dog so had to put it elsewhere or we couldn’t get to the washing machine.

They too were put to bed when dh came up and let out when he came down.

What’s the difference?

My puppy was 12 weeks old when she came home from the breeder.

Dh put her in her crate at 10:30pm and got her up when he came downstairs at 6am.

The first week she was home, I slept on the sofa next to her crate. Not that I really needed to, she was used to crates as she has been around them since she was born.

I set an alarm for 2am to take her out for a wee (has she whimpered to go out, it would have woke me, but she didn’t).

She only went a couple of times. The last couple of nights, she didn’t want to get out of the crate and go outside - she just shifted position and went back to sleep. The breeder had told us that most of the litter had stopped toileting from around 11pm until 6, she was already 13 kg at that point, so a large puppy.

From the second week, she would trot into her crate when she saw dh shutting up shop for bed. Quick wee outside and she was in her crate, laying down before he’d even got back to the room to imprison her for the night.

Never once heard a peep from her.

We still don’t. She sleeps on the sofa now, but huffs and puffs if everyone isn’t out of that room with the lights off by 9pm 🤣 We get banished to the family room so she can get her beauty sleep.

I don’t know what difference you think it would have made her not being in her crate with the door closed as a puppy? She would have soon let us know if something was wrong.

She was asleep. Or happily chewing on a safe toy at times when she was awake.

Had the door to the crate been open, god knows what a puppy would have got up to. She could have hurt herself on something. We don’t live in a padded cell, you cannot puppy proof everything. I don’t allow dogs in bedrooms, and even if she was in my room, I’d be asleep and she could have still got up to all sorts.

But okay. If it makes you happy, I will admit that I am a terrible dog abuser and I will hand myself into the RSPCA immediately.

Small kids are left "caged" in a cot for hours overnight too.
How is this different?

This is actually getting a bit boring now.

But out of interest, while my poor puppy was imprisoned while I was asleep, at Tesco, or walking my children to school, what did you do with yours?

Did you leave them to their own devices while still toilet training? Or in rooms where they could have chewed something or got stuck somewhere? I’m genuinely interested.

And don’t say you didn’t leave it because that’s not tenable. We all have to do things and go to places where we can’t take dogs, or places that wouldn’t be appropriate for them.

It is frustrating. So I should have let a teething puppy loose downstairs overnight. Left her to chew wires. But OP says we need to puppy proof our house instead, or train them properly.
She also keeps ignoring the point about how small children are put in cots. Why not let them loose in the night too?

Us too

crates are great if used properly.

our first dog used it as the place she went for time out - and my then young daughter was raised to know that if the dog was in her crate she was left alone!

Also our current dog was crate trained and mainly for his own safety .. he found something once and chewed it up and choked - if we weren’t there he’d have died, so the crate ensured he was safe when we weren’t there to watch him.

I don’t know how knowledgable you are about dogs @Poppycorn123 but an anxious dog left alone will pace, howl and urinate everywhere… a crate makes them feel more secure and they tend to curl up and just sleep happily.

The issue comes when people misuse crates… crates are supposed to be a safe comfortable space for a dog to sleep and relax. Not a prison cell!… Banning them because some people misuse them is like banning cars because some people speed!

Oh FFS.

No-one here is advocating being shut in for hours on end. That is your wilful misunderstanding.

Beginning to think you are on the wind up!

Because my dog was crate trained, her injured leg was able to heal.

I honestly do not believe you have any experience with dogs.

For goodness sake 🙄 No one on this thread is imprisoning their dog!!

You've had countless explanations on how crates are sensibly and appropriately used, but you're fixated on the fact that sadly, the dogs you referred to in your original post died.

They did not die because they were caged. They died because their owners neglected them.

Anyone with any sense can see that's the case.

This whole thread is just lots of people banging their head against a brick wall.

We have a crate, it’s in a quiet place of the house when she goes if she wants some quiet time. It has a very comfortable bed in it and it’s got a black throw over it.

Normally she prefers to sleep on the sofa no later than 9.30pm but if we are staying up later, she will huff which is the prompt for her bedtime wee and then she will go to her crate after another sigh.

I don’t see this as unfair or cruel. She has a great life and I’m not going to kick people out of the house so she can pick her prime sleep spot. She already had two beds in the living room or a choice of two sofas.

@Poppycorn123 - without a crate, how should we have protected our dog after her three knee surgeries? Three orthopaedic operations where cage rest was prescribed by the veterinary surgeon who did the operations, because of the damage that could have been done if she had tried to run, jump, change direction too fast, or if she had slipped on the floor.

She was not even allowed to walk unaided to the garden to do her business - she had to be on a short lead, with a strap under her belly that we held, so we could prevent even the smallest slip. We had to support her back end going up or down the steps to and from the lawn, and, because she wouldn't do her business on the lead, we had to build a cage on the lawn, big enough for her to do her business, but small enough she couldn’t get up speed to jump out.

This is the level of care that she needed after her surgeries, and if we hadn’t taken proper care - meaning cage rest - of her then, she wouldn’t not have had several more pain free, active years.

It’s maddening, isn’t it?

Says the person who's never owned a dog to the person who owns five and has been breeding and rescuing for 20+ years.

I think I might know a bit more about how to use crates than you. But please, continue in your ignorance and with your alarmist attitude. It's quite amusing to read. Like the twilight zone, or indeed twilight. I do love a bit of fiction.

But you have to restrict them. My dog would take her self into her crate from when she came home.

But if she needed a wee? She would have hopped out and done it on the carpet. Fancied the look of that wire in the corner? She would have hopped out and chewed it.

I agree - that seems right. They're animals, not babies, and they need to be treated as such. In regards to your other comment, they definitely need a little den to cosy away in. I just can't get past the idea that shutting them up in a cage feels too restrictive. But it seems as though you're a dedicated owner, so I assume you know what you're doing!

Poor thing. That's bloody horrible. People shouldn't get dogs if they're just going to mistreat them like that.

During house training, i set the alarm and got up every 2 hours through the night. He also went out regularly throughout the day. Any more questions?

A breeder once told me she thinks the rise in destructive dogs is because they are treated like children.

Never left alone, always the centre of attention, treated like a human rather than a dog and it created separation anxiety when they are left.

You have to leave them for short periods and build up from the word go.

Obviously, some dogs will just have an anxious personality, but I don’t think people do their dogs any favours by never leaving them alone.

Sadly, I did know someone who did keep their dog outside. The parents of my first boyfriend. It lived in a small kennel, and had a small patio area. They had a massive garden, but the poor dog was not allowed in the rest of it. He never went in the house as the owner said he was destructive. Never went on walks because he pulled on the lead. The patio area was just covered in poo. I was with my boyfriend for about 6 months until I knew they even had a dog.
For some reason, my boyfriend's older brother bought a duck, and it was allowed free reign of their garden.

But that’s not kinder for a dog. Dogs like small, dark dens. It comforts them. They don’t go to the toilet where they sleep when it’s a small space so it helps them with toilet training.

People just go about it the wrong way. They shove an 8 week old puppy in one on its own the first night it’s home, it starts to howl and they give up thinking it’s cruel.