Does EVERY dog owner use a crate with their new dog?

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Because I have tried and failed with my puppy and I hate to think I am letting her down or doing the wrong thing. Quite simply, she hated it. I got loads of advice, did everything by the book but she howled for ages and became very distressed. I have now dismantled the crate and she has a bed in the corner. She is pretty good at night, only having the odd accident, and getting better every day. She is 8 weeks and 3 days and a golden retriever.

This is my first puppy as my previous dog came to me at 2 yrs old. I bought the fabulous book by Gwen Bailey and have learned so much from it. My dog is beautiful and happy, training is going well and we are having a wonderful time together but I am worried because of this one crating issue. Any reassurance from more experienced dog owners?

You don't have to use a crate, but it makes life much easier if you do, in terms of toilet training and preventing the puppy chewing things that may harm her. She is very young, have you had her long? I have made a long reply in a thread below (about a lab puppy barking in a crate) about how I crate train, that might help.

I at least partially crate train my pups before they leave me and reccommend crate training to my new owners. However, I do also reiterate to them that a crate is a training aid, not a substitute for training and that puppies should not be left shut in them for long periods, unless overnight.

I usualy take my own puppy's crate away once they are toilet trained due to space issues, but whenever we have a puppy, and hence a crate in the kitchen, all my older dogs try to get in there when the door is open and I will usually find one curled up in there with puppy. They love their crates.

i used one with both my dogs - one came to me as a rescue and had been badly treated and one came to me as a puppy.

their crate was their bed and they felt safe there. plus it kept them out of mischief when i was out of the house. i never crated if i was there, only at night or if i was out. neither of mine use a crate now but it was useful in the early days.

we didn;t use a crate. and I really don't think it would have made life easier. we had a very dog-friendly kitchen - nothing he could chew and a tiled (ie accident-friendly) floor. so it was fine to leave him there - at night or when we went out for a short while. he was house trained by about 9.5 weeks.

if she is only 8 weeks 3 days then presumably you haven;t had her for long - and the howling might not be the crate per se, but being left?

When she was in her crate, I was actually in the same room, albeit around a corner. I slept downstairs the first few days she came to us. She howled for about 20 minutes and clawed and tried to chew the crate to get out. Is this normal? I expected her to like the crate and made it really cosy and den-like but she would sleep on the floor or behind the sofa rather than choose her crate. If I put her inside it, she would stay there for 20 seconds or so and then walk out. Our dog has actually been very good at being left alone through the night and doesn't cry - she is in a dog bed in a quiet corner and the last few nights she hasn't peed on the floor.

She was not crated in her previous home and she, other pups and mum were in a large utility room/garage attached to the owners house. She has lots of strong chew toys (Kongs etc) but I do worry about her chewing something that might hurt her, even though I've tried to puppy proof downstairs as much as possible.

I guess I'm worried that I've 'damaged' her in some way by not continuing with the crating PFB Puppy emoticon?

No need to crate no. We have an 11 week pup and do not crate, but we do have a small utility room with no door on but a stair gate so she can be contained when we need to and overnight. She is clean and dry already and our main issue is chewing now. Once we get through that phase she'll have free access in the house.

We have one, our dog is a boisterous 18mth old bearded collie. He was in it for the first few weeks at night and then he is just put in it when we have friends kids round (more for him - he is petrified of his own shadow and likes to retreat in there) As I type he has chosen to go and sleep in there .....

We aren't experienced dog owners, but we really weren't keen on the idea of crating. Our puppy is six months old and seems to have progressed in line with the standard expectations (sleeping at night, house training etc). He sleeps in his own (fairly empty) room at night, but it's not somewhere he ever goes during the day (he is currently lying upside-down on dh's feet on the sofa, fast asleep). He has a huge amount of chews, bones etc and hasn't really shown much interest in anything else (apart from sticks and stones in the garden.) But he has yet to be left home alone, so who knows what he would get up to without some level of supervision.

We didn't use a crate for either of our dogs. I hated the idea of crating them and it didn't cause us any problems. They were toilet trained reasonably quickly and didn't chew anything too much.