Dog crates are cruel

[Poppycorn123]

In light of this terrible story I think they should be banned. Yes people will say they are good for training etc but I think in general they are being overused. A family member would put the dog in it while they have guests. Dog is not vicious or anything, just gets a bit excited as a young dog should. I think this is awful.

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

Ive had dogs all my life actually. And never once needed to imprison them. Obviously this has hit a nerve. I pity your poor 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.

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

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

Closing the door is imprisoning them. End of. They are also completely overused. They are a training tool. Not for people to lock them in for hours on end whilst they work, sleep and run errands.

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!

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!

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?

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.

I don't know about you but I go to bed for at least 6 hours. So yes leaving them overnight in a crate is for many hours..

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

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.

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?

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.

Do you know how much dogs sleep? Our dog nods off about 7pm after she’s had her evening walk and food, sleeps solidly until about 10pm when we let her outside for a wee, then she trots off to her crate and we don’t hear a peep from her til about 7.30am. She sleeps in later than we do. Maybe we just have an incredibly lazy dog, I don’t know, but she’s not doing anything in those hours other than sleeping.

We have a huge one which the dogs go in when we are out or over night and they use it as their bed, it’s covered and comfy and they put them selves in it for a sleep.

i don’t see a problem with them if used correctly

And I pity your poor dogs since you've clearly one of those deranged ‘fur mom’ types who thinks dogs are literally human children and that every normal form of containment is abuse. Okay, so what do you do with actual children then? Is a bedroom a prison because they can’t roam the house at 3 a.m.? Is a fenced yard a concentration camp because the dog can’t just wander off as he pleases? A crate is a basic management and safety tool, not a medieval torture device and owning dogs for years clearly hasn’t stopped you from projecting human emotions onto them and confusing melodrama with knowledge.

Do you feel the same way about stabled horses?

I’ve never had a dog but if I ever do, I’ll never use a crate.

The more comments you make, the more I don’t think you have any understanding of dogs.

As an example - dogs do not generally want to get up in the middle of the night to - as you put it - stretch their legs. They sleep far more than humans. In fact, it is lack of quiet space and sleep that can create poor behaviour especially in pups and young dogs. You might find it interesting to read up a bit about dog psychology and behaviour. Anthropomorphising isn’t helpful either.

Responsible dog owners will choose between crating or not, or a mix. Irresponsible twat owners will fail their dogs no matter what.

If ever you do get a dog you will need to educate yourself on their needs.

I really am shocked and saddened to learn how many people on this thread misuse the crates

I can see that you would be shocked and saddened by the case you mention in which the dogs died. But I think it's an enormous overreaction to be shocked and saddened that a dog sleeps with its door shut overnight, or a puppy is put in a crate for safe downtime.

I think I said that before we got our dog, out of ignorance. We ended up with one as we have very lively children and thought it might be sensible to have a safe space for the dog to have peace and quiet (there is nowhere else in the house that would be suitable). It turns out we were right and from day dot she went straight for the crate when she wanted to sleep, out of choice. It helped the kids to understand the boundaries of ‘dog is tired, she has taken herself off to bed, you must leave her alone now’. She is a very sociable dog and when awake she is happiest following the family around and being fussed, but when sleeping she wants to be left alone and can get ratty if she is disturbed.

If you see them as a cage without putting any logical thought into it, a crate does sound like it would be cruel. But actually from the dog’s perspective it’s a safe contained space they can have alone time in - dogs actually need this. As a puppy we would shut her in for short periods while she slept so we knew she was safe while we were elsewhere in the house - we rarely need to now, but she still chooses it for where to sleep on a night. You could shut it every night if you wanted because she doesn’t get out of it until morning. If I got rid of the crate I think she would be more unhappy, she wouldn’t have anywhere to take herself off to.

We had dogs as kids but as a PP said in the early 90s it was common for dogs to be left outside in the garden with a kennel while owners were at work, and that’s what my parents did with our dogs. I wouldn’t do that now personally. They were loved and very much family pets but they were treated like animals, not children. There was no feeding the dog from the table, in fact the dogs did not eat human food at all. They ate after we ate. It was unheard of to have the dog sleep in bed with the owner, they slept downstairs in the hall or the kitchen. The cats had more of a run of the house than the dogs did, but cats a different story. Even the dogs knew the cats were higher in the pecking order than they were.

Whereas nowadays in many households it seems that the dog is in charge and the owners pander to the dogs. I think that’s when you end up with more behavioural problems because the dogs see themselves as the leaders and protectors so become reactive to anything they perceive as a threat. I’ve lost count of the number of people I know whose dogs have ‘anxiety’ or have needed to hire behaviourists because of problems like inappropriate resource guarding. As kids our dogs knew they were not the boss of the house and I think mine knows that too. She is a happy loving dog with zero behavioural issues but she is not allowed to do whatever she wants.

Well that’s on the owners; not the crates.