Can anyone explain how crating dogs isn't cruel?

[DalaHorse]

I am not trying to be controversial. I am genuinely shocked by the crating "trend". I am aware that lots of people do this. But I cannot understand how locking the dog in a crate is at all fair or beneficial to the dog. I can however see how locking the dog in a crate is very beneficial to the owner. Is there any justification in terms of it being beneficial to dogs that I really can't see?

[ThePlatypusAlwaysTriumphs]

"I am genuinely shocked by the crating "trend". I am aware that lots of people do this. But I cannot understand how locking the dog in a crate is at all fair or beneficial to the dog. I can however see how locking the dog in a crate is very beneficial to the owner. Is there any justification in terms of it being beneficial to dogs that I really can't see?"

I was responding to this, your OP. And to your suggestion that it is "laziness" on the owner's part.

[DalaHorse]

I am also entitled to have my opinion. Certain people seem to have overlooked that. I take huge offense at being:

• Mis-quoted
  
• Misrepresented
  
• Being told that I am hugely offensive when I have actually been mis-quoted and misrepresented
  
• Being told that I am dismissive of everyone when there is plenty of written evidence to show that I have not been
  

Like I said, Mumsnet HQ would be very interested in my HUGELY OFFENSIVE POSTS if you can find them.

[ThePlatypusAlwaysTriumphs]

Just out of interest, how do you dog-proof a room?

[DalaHorse]

ThePlatypus, there has been five pages of posts since the OP, so if you had read them, like I said you would find I agree with 90% of your post. There was no mention of laziness in the OP either. If you haven't got time to read five pages, that's fine, but I don't think that accusing me of things that have been discussed or addressed since the OP is fine. It's not.

[DalaHorse]

You tell me, you're the vet!

[DalaHorse]

Thank you, Bunnylion.

[ThePlatypusAlwaysTriumphs]

er, I'm not accusing you of anything! I have read the thread, thanks, and you did mention "laziness", but although you have conceded that there might be some cases where cages/ crates could be beneficial, you obviously still think as you did in your OP.

Tbh, I don't actually care whether you crate your dog or not. And I won't go to bed crying if you think all people who crate theirs are monsters. But you asked the question, and I gave my reply!

And I can't tell you how to dog-proof a room because I don't believe it can be done (for some dogs!)

[CoolStoryBro]

I'm going to just ignore the fight going on and say, if it wasn't for the crate, I don't think my dog would be alive today.

He is a small, fear aggressive dog. He was also the first dog I ever owned. I have spent so much money on trainers and I accept he will never be "fixed". But that didn't mean we had to give up on him.

He is the happiest little man most of the time, but he hates it when new people come to the house. So, I crate him. And then, after he's heard their voices for a while, I bring him out on leash. And my teens know, if I'm not home by then, to go in the house first and let him go into the garden before all their friends charge in.

He has free run of the house and gardens 95% of the time. I genuinely doubt that crating him, for his own safety, is cruel.

And to really piss people off, both my dogs sleep at the end of our extremely large bed.

[HoneyDragon]

I always have a suspicion on a thread when people claim they just want to know something.

I like to play Mumsnet Bingo as soon as someone mentions people being defensive.

And more importantly, for reasons I can't articulate properly right now it disturbs me that someone who I'd vehemently opposed to cages sees them as necessary for what they referrer to as 'disturbed' dogs.

A number of people on this thread or either professionals in their field and amazing people who have devoted their lives and resources to all dogs without prejudice. They've simply answered why crates are used and for what. No one has said the op is not allowed to dislike them. Not once.

I wouldn't have bothered responding to this thread myself if I had realised it was not intended as a discussion, but as a vehicle for self indulgence.

Bunlion, I think your points are true. There are always ways to to address the points you have made without crating.

But I prefer a crate as in my case my dog needed to travel. It is far easier to have a crate when your dog regularly goes to a factory, travels on boats, goes camping at festivals and shows. Because I may miss something in dog proofing. My dog has always had the freedom she needs in all those places but we had the crate to keep her safe from others

In regards to locking her in a dog proof room when visitors arrive. For me that is not an option. I'm trying to train her to socialise properly and learn boundaries and interaction.
In her pen she can safely watch and observe, rather than be lovked in another room, and I can work on her Settle command. This is done with clicker training too. The door is more open than shut during this process, it is open for longer as she learns to behave better around new folk.

The pen also out lines her space in a very clear boundary for my pre-schooler. It's as much for keeping small humans out as keeping a dog in

I'm not being defensive as I don't need to be. But the above reasons are why I like to have a crate or similar, and find them useful for my dogs welfare.

[Booboostoo]

DalaHorse in response to your questions:

The dog has to be trained to see the closed crate as a positive experience, so one cannot just shut the door. This happens over a period of weeks and the owner needs to be able to spend the time to help the dog learn, just like with every other activity.

The right to walk: I think dogs have a right to exercise appropriate to their age, breed and individual needs, not a right to walk 24/7 (indeed if in some perverse universe I decided to help my dog exercise its right to walk 24/7 I would be seriously harming my dog!). The wild ancestor of the dog roamed over hundreds of miles, domesticated dogs have adapted their needs to those of their humans, which is exactly why they make good pets. Dogs need to learn to travel in cars, be confined by leads, return to recall, stay in kennels at the vets/while the owner is on holiday, not jump into next door's garden, go settle on their beds, not jump on sofas, etc. all of which are at odds with a 'right to walk'.

Having said that of course dogs must be properly exercised and stimulated as well as expecting them to spend some quiet time and crates must be large enough to allow the dog to stand up, turn around and lie flat out comfortably.

If people can do their dog training without a crate that's perfectly fine, there is no obligation to use one. It's just a useful tool, one of many and there is no obligation to use all available (positive) training methods with every dog. Chosing not to use a crate because other methods work is not the same as thinking there is something wrong with a crate.

[LeBFG]

The only person I ever knew with a crate was a hunter with an expensive hunting dog. He was crated indoors (oddly for a hunt dog) 'for convenience'. I found this cruel so my opinion on crates is tainted. I've never liked kennels either. Reading through these posts though I can see, maybe, crates aren't really cruel when used humanely.

But some points/questions spring to mind:

1. Some people on here seem to be using the crates to solve problems: my dog poos/chews/nips so I crate. I would prefer to see them solving more of these problems rather than 'crate 'em'.
   

1. Young puppies, like young children, have to learn how to behave in a house. They can't do this when crated. There have always been wires etc for them to chew. They have to learn/be trained not to chew them. Plus, any puppy problems are quickly resolved (in good houses) as they grow and are trained. It's a phase that passes very quickly.
   

1. My biggest potential fear would be creating a space just for the dog which may encourage territorial behaviour in the dog. What happens if the toddler is in the crate one day? I firmly believe that when you invite a dog to share your house you should trust them fully wherever and whenever they are. There are always quiet places to hide - 'caves' love the idea! My cavedog loves going under beds - but he knows these are not HIS spaces and trots off quite happily if I want to evict him. I'm not so sure this would be the case if he had his own crate.

[HoneyDragon]

LeBFG

On reading your post I looked around for Hully

She's currently here
She currently can go anywhere in the house at this present time.

She's not crated when I go out. And that pen extends out a further foot, foot and a half on the odd occasions she is shut in.


I am not unduly worried about her right to roam or her interaction with my children either as a result of the crate

And crates can be abused. My mother and I had direct experience of this when my Grandmother moved in with us. Our Labs crate was used as her bed. To the point we'd kind of forgotten it was a crate.

We'd return home regularly to find her locked in her crate. Because

"The doorbell rang"
"She nearly knocked me over"
"She tried to get through my door"


My GM had a annexe. The only shared part of the house was the kitchen, and none of the behaviours that warranted the dog being locked away were displayed by our dog

Solution? We moved the dogs crate and banned GM from the rest of the house barring the kitchen dog had two lounges, the Utility room and a hallway as her own personal domain when were out. She used to just have the hall and dining room ... Lucky dog.

[Booboostoo]

LeNFG crates are a way of solving the problems you mention and part of a greater training schedule. So for example, for toilet training I use a number of training 'tools':

• I let the puppy out frequently,
  
• I reward any toilet outside
  
• I ignore and clean up accidents inside
  
• I supervise the puppy all the time for any signs of toilet
  
• if unable to supervise I pop the puppy in the crate where she is unlikely to soil
  

Similarly with chewing, the crate alone won't teach the puppy what to chew but will be part of a training routine that teaches it a safe place to chew things you giver her.

Of course young puppies have to learn how to behave in a house (as long as you intend to keep them in a house) but that doesn't mean that you can devote 24/7 of your time to that task. For the moments when you cannot supervise and help avoid unwanted behaviour and reward wanted behaviour, you have the crate. Merely placing a dog in a crate will not teach them anything, but then again no one on this thread is advocating that. There are strict guidelines for how long you can leave a puppy in a crate, i.e. no more than 8 hours overnight (with toilet breaks if needed), no more than 4 hours in the day.

As for resource guarding you need to distinguish between:

• a dog that has this behavioural issue who is likely to guard all sorts of things like his food, the sofa, his bed, and may include the crate in the list of things he guards
  
• and the idea that using a crate will make the dog resource guard.
  

The second is unlikely to happen and as unlikely to happen as thinking that by giving the dog its own feed bowl, or its own bed or its own leash, it will learn to guard all these things. Just because you give a dog something it does not mean that it will guard it. Dogs should, of course, be taught a leave it command, which can be adapted to asking them to walk out the crate (as you ask them to get off the sofa. Just because you allow a dog on the sofa does not mean that the dog won't allow anyone else on the sofa, or that it won't get off the sofa when asked to).

The first is a behavioural problem which needs to be addressed with respect to the underlying issue (usually anxiety and stress) and it may be that such a dog is not suitable for a home with toddlers.

[Booboostoo]

For what it's worth I was introduced to crates 17 years ago when I got my first dog and have since to come across a trainer who does not recommend them (all the trainers I have trained with have used positive reward methods).

[HoneyDragon]

I think crates are like head collars. If you view them as a solution you shouldn't use them. If you use them as a necessary device whilst you are putting the hard work in they are worth their weight in gold.

I get much angrier about people who buy Haltis, stick them on their dog and never bother to teach them to walk to heel.

[ChickensHaveNoEyebrows]

YY HoneyDragon. Teaching Jas to walk to heel is an ongoing training issue, not helped by the fact that most of our walks are off lead while he thunders through the woods and dives in ponds. The canny collar has helped enormously in getting him to pay attention to me so that we can practice heel walking. He now mostly walks on a loose lead on road walks, although still ahs an issue with cats We will use the crate to keep Stanley safe until I know that both dogs can be together without incident, and I'll probably still crate Stanley if I have to go out for a while after that just in case. I hope to be able to retire the crate by the time he's a year old.

[tabulahrasa]

My puppy knows drop, leave and has plenty of things appropriate to chew...but that doesn't stop him trying other things and it definitely wouldn't stop him if I'm not there.

I've no idea what would happen if a toddler went in his crate, he doesn't stay in it if there are toddlers visiting...toddlers are his favourite, they're perfect licking height.

We don't go and disturb him if he's in his crate - because if he's gone in there, then he's sleeping and of course he can't be fallen on by accident by a toddler, which is a good thing. But I suspect if he was asleep in there and a toddler climbed in they'd get sleepy licking, lol. That's what happens if he's disturbed while sleeping elsewhere and I'm at his crate a fair bit anyway, changing water, taking back the DC's shoes that they left lying about and he stole, washing the cover on his bed...stuff like that, he doesn't care. He lets the cats go in it without seeming to care.

I don't think a crate is any more likely to make them guard a space than any other kind of bed.

[LeBFG]

I am inclined to agree with your last post Honey (love Hully btw, she looks terribly neglected ) and I suppose, if crates are not negative (even positive for crate-advocates) I can see with their increased popularity they are immensely easy to facilitate lazy parenting dog keeping. Just like head collars, electric shock collars etc. I would personally still see crates as different from other dog only things simply by the nature of the cave effect. Like bones. It links into a primeval thing (but everyone has their own ideas on this). Good dog owners of course would tackle this issue head on. I think I read on another thread about someone using a crate because they had a nippy dog. I felt this was as easy op-out of training.

[D0oinMeCleanin]

'I still don't see any valid reason for using a crate for the benefit of the dog and not just the owner'

Safe travel in cars.

A safe, secure place to leave the dog if you like to go camping with them, or to dog friendly hotels which have no dog proof rooms. When I went away with Devil Dog I'd have been in a mess if he wasn't crate trained because he wasn't allowed to be left alone in the room unless he was crated, he also wasn't allowed in the dining or common room and there was no eating allowed in the rooms, so I'd have starved for three days otherwise.

Vets use crates, if your dog is crate trained it makes operations and vet treatments where they might need to be kept in much more comfortable for them.

If your dog is crate trained it can be an essential tool when the dog is recovering from surgery, especially if the dog is young and likely to aggravate his injuries by bouncing about or if you have more than one dog.

I use them a lot if we take in emergency fosters who might not get on with 'the pack' it means my dogs can be crated safely while I work with the new dog or while I am moving the new dog from room to room and my dogs cannot be safely contained.

Whilst only whippy uses a crate regularly, Devil Dog is also crate trained and any long term foster I might take in begins crate training.

FWIW Whippy will howl all night if her crate door is not closed. If she becomes close with a foster dog, she might accept sleeping outside the crate with the new dog, otherwise she loves her crate and needs it locking to feel secure.

[D0oinMeCleanin]

More dog centric benefits I have just thought of....

In a multi dog household giving high value treats could start fights, if the dogs are crated separately they can still receive their high value treats whilst remaining safe from aggression from other dogs. Yes, arguably you could train for this and I have with my two, but when we bring in a new dog, crating them is the safest way for them all to enjoy their raw bones.

If I get a foster dog who has separation anxiety and doesn't like to sleep alone in the dining room, I will bring up the spare crate and set it up by my bed. This allows the dog to feel comfortable knowing I am close by and for me to have it in my room without me teaching it it can sleep on the people bed, which would greatly reduce it's chance of finding a successful forever home. Lots of potential adopters do not want to share their bed with large, snoring, farting greyhounds. I am then able to slowly move the crate out of my room and back downstairs without stressing the dog or the neighbours out.

[merrymouse]

Our dog sleeps in a crate - he runs to it every night after being let out before bedtime. Keeping him in a crate at night means that we can visit other people without dog proofing the room he sleeps in; and prevents him from scrabbling on the door to be let out at 5am (the time we usually get up).

During the day he tends to sleep on top of it.

If he were shut in the crate against his wishes he would soon make it known that he wanted to get out. It would be very distressing and I really don't think it would be a solution for somebody looking for an easy option. Much more pleasant and straightforward just to train him.

In other words, most dogs have to be trained to use a crate, so I don't think its an option for people who don't want to train their dog. (Unless they enjoy having a barking distressed dog in the house, and really want to annoy the neighbours, which is not really on the same level of bad pet ownership as "can't be bothered to dog proof the house").

[HoneyDragon]

I think anyone who thinks that these things are not misused on a fairly wide scale is being a bit naive tbh

Agree wholeheartedly

Also with your sentiments about buying a crate with puppy. A family member did exactly this as they were told to but had no idea how to use it.

[idirdog]

Ignorance over dog ownership, training and behaviour is epidemic not just in connection with crates.

Dogs are still being trained in appalling ways, fed on inappropriate diets, walked on pain inducing leads and collars why stop at crates. Pet dogs are living boring restricted lives because owners do not know how to train and mentally stimulate them.

Just read the bastard dog thread on here and see how all the behaviours the owners are whining about are down to the owners inability to understand/ train their dogs correctly

[HoneyDragon]

Well, I know I've not got the best dog in the world. And I learnt through making some epic mistakes along the way

Most of my dogs bad behaviours occur when I've been focusing on other aspects of good training


And as long as dogs generate profit, company's will spin any old shit to get cash out of new owners, hence what used to be referred to training aids are now marketed as magic solutions to stop barking, pulling, chewing etc.