Is crating necessary?

[vivivienne]

We have a lab puppy joining us next Saturday and we’re all beyond excited! We have a small room behind our kitchen with a sofa and the dog bed and have put a puppy gate up between kitchen and the room. I thought this would be enough but have noticed that most people here have crates and am wondering whether you experienced dog owners think they’re necessary?

In my parents day their dogs never had crates. However, I do remember things getting destroyed in the house when the dogs were young. How they avoided obstructions etc was probably just luck.

I think crates are good for puppies and young dogs. As other pps have said, you can shut them in for safety reasons ( e.g.front door open), but I can't see that the older, sensible dog needs one. My crate has now been put away, and no one could describe them as an attractive accessory anyway. If my dog needs to be kept secure I can shut her quite happily in a separate room without her fussing. It always worries me when people use then throughout an adult dogs life, consistently shutting them in a cage when they go out, treating a dog like a rabbit or guinea pig.

No! Do it if you want but I have never ever done it never needed to do it just as long as your dog has a safe space but they know is theirs.

Our lab - 12 weeks - has had a crate since we brought her home at 8 weeks. It was in the living room with us for first 3 weeks but now in the utility room and she happily sleeps in there at night - and though the night now with no accidents. She can see the hall so not “locked away”. Have used since night one. Happily goes there -knows it signals bed time. Slept until 8am this morning!! Often goes in there in the day on her own free will when she’s resting. I just leave the door open. She has a dog bed too in the kitchen which she loves but we have no problems at night or on the very odd instances have started to leave her - up to an hour. She can chew toys there ..... not bits of the house! It’s a safe place - I put heated pads in too. Our old lab also loved hers - we had younger children then and she used it as her “leave me be” place.

A crate is definitely useful and most dogs really love them.

Personally, I didn’t get up in the night for toilet break.
I took her out just before bed, got up around 7 and just cleared up any accidents but there weren’t many.

And I personally wouldn’t bother with a bed because most puppies just destroy them..

What do you all put in your crate? A pillow? Lots of blankets?

I mean a big pillow, not one for them to rest their head on :)

I’ll sound so mean..

Nothing in the crate.
She started with a duvet but just chewed it up...

The crate came with a furry base mattress. It was good as it had a waterproof bottom so could be washed easily and nothing soaked through.

We bought a crate but never felt comfortable locking her in so really it was just a den! She put grew it by 6 months and we replaced with a bed. I'd never get a crate again- beds are fine

caroldanvers could I ask where you got it from? I’ve been looking for one that comes with one of those but can’t seem to find one and the bases by themselves seem to be ridiculously expensive

Amazon. This one.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Ellie-Bo-Deluxe-Strong-Folding-Sheepskin/dp/B004I5PUPS/ref=pdsbss1994??encoding=UTF8&pdrddi=B00362AQI0&pdrddr=8dae6845-12c7-11e9-8d70-57c8a2fe6793&pdrddw=WBclR&pdrddwg=0FOXp&pfrddp=18edf98b-139a-41ee-bb40-d725dd59d1d3&pfrddr=QRG5ZY8AF3Z88A38R5XG&refRID=QRG5ZY8AF3Z88A38R5XG&th=1

I think we’re going down crate until she outgrows it and then bed as by the time she outgrows it she should be toilet trained completely- we’re planning to crate her in the night and that’s it but crate door would be open all day of course if she wanted to go in there

Personally I think crate training alleviates a lot of the stress of having a puppy and I would always use one. My boy would take himself off into it at about 8 pm and then I would shut the door after a trip outside at about midnight. He never made a fuss and as he became more reliable I started leaving it open at night. He gradually stopped using it - preferring the bed, snuggled as close as possible right next to me so I collapsed it and it’s in the attic ready for the next puppy that needs it.

We have a one year old cavi and he's been crated with us and his breeder crated the pups too. It's their safe place. If you google crate training the rspca give you a step by step guide for crate training and it really works.
We've found that him liking his crate has been a god send on numerous occasions.

No crate training for our pup and her bed was our bed. She woke us in the night to take her out for a pee and now at 10 months, she sleeps on the floor in my sons room, her choice.

We used a crate for bedtime initially and had it next to the bed upstairs. He'd cry when he wanted a wee and I could carry him down and out to the garden. He was never left in the daytime and never used his crate in the day. He has an odd den he made himself under the bench in the office! As he got older and no longer needed night time toilet I started leaving his crate downstairs at night and as he got too big for it I started leaving the door open. He gravitated to sleeping in the conservatory over the summer on the big leather sofa. It is really cold in there in the winter so I stared leaving the stair gate open. He now takes himself off to bed at about 10pm into the conservatory and then trundles upstairs around 2am to sleep in his dog bed in my bedroom. He hops on the bed around 6am and curls up next to my head to wait for me to wake up!

These days he is left at home for 30 mins twice per day when I do school drop off and pick up and just snoozes on the sofa whilst I am gone. He is now 12 months old and is pretty chilled out!

Crate training all the way for me and our bonkers golden retriever. He’s now 6 months and fully house trained, but when he was little it was a godsend (you’d never be able to have a shower, cook a meal etc without one imho). We never used puppy pads etc, so having a space where you could put him while occupied with other stuff was so useful.

We've never had anything as frightening as @Snugglepiggy 's situation but young dogs can be incredibly destructive very quickly when they're at the chewing stage. Even if you're in the house it only takes a few moments for them to do something dreadful. In fifteen years of running a dog walking business, we've had... an iPhone charger (thankfully turned off at the time), a genuine Hermes handbag, one of a pair of £300 shoes (this is somehow even more depressing as they always seem to leave the other shoe completely undamaged), an original vinyl copy of the White Album, several socks or similar, two of which were swallowed and ended up with emergency surgery, uncounted bits of carpet dug up and furniture chewed scratched or dug into... quite a few of these incidents weren't when dog was home alone waiting for the walker to collect, but while owner was distracted on phone or similar.