Coming from a law enforcement background with dogs it is pretty much ingrained the use crate training any new dog that comes into our household. I am always surprised how so many other people see this a bad thing for any dog, pet or otherwise.
I can see where some people can think that a crate can be mean or bad for a dog. This is typically called "humanizing" the dog. All dog owners, at some point in time, humanize our dogs. We treat them as we would want to be treated. Dogs begging at the table, we sneak them a bite of food off of our plate, so on and so forth. This goes to the crate also. Some see it as some sort of punishment, forcing the poor pup into solitary confinement like we would some mass murderer.
We have had Dougal since he was about 5 months old (he went through puppy school before he came home to us). Dougal is also a border collie, if you remember the Tasmanian devil cartoon, this is what a border collie puppy is like. High energy level is a bit of an understatement. We learned quickly that if we did force some "nap" times for Dougal he would simply keep going till he got overly tired, and like a toddler would become very hard to live with very quickly. Solution: Nap time! Early on it was about 4 hours during the day and slowly decreased as he got older. Seems to have worked very well for us. We have weaned off the crate over the last year, as he has to be close to me more often than not and has started to calm down due to age.
Back to the topic. Dogs have an inborn instinct to be den sleepers. They are very comfortable with it, it provides them with warmth and security in the wild especially when younger. So in todays thoughts of safe spaces and such it should be a no brainer. Crate training provides the puppy with it's own space to help reduce the stress of all the new sounds around it. Vacuum cleaners, kids playing, all these new sounds and smells can be overwhelming. Providing your puppy its own den can only help him/her. Also, it gives the new puppy mom or dad some much needed time to not have to worry about the pup getting into things that it should not be in. There is a large group of trainers that will advise to only let the pup out for a few hours a day and that is under direct owner supervision.
The early days for Dougal was about 4 hours in the crate and when let out to explore he had his house lead on. We also did on the spot training throughout the day with his basic obedience. We had 2 major outside adventures a day, one early in the morning and another around 4 or 5pm, to a very secluded dog park and potty breaks every 15-30 minutes when he was out of his kennel. At bedtime I would lead him to the crate and tell him it was nap time and he would go in, sometime rather reluctantly.
Most dogs like schedules, just like most of us. Once a schedule is set everything is so much easier for both dog and handler. This includes crate time.
Now, I said earlier that we were weaning Dougal away from the crate. Does this mean I am against them now? No, Dougal is my service dog and part of his job is waking me up from night terrors so having him confined in his crate would not be very helpful. He still has his crate where he can go when he feels the need but it is not a mandatory thing, it's just his safe spot.
I can see where some people can think that a crate can be mean or bad for a dog. This is typically called "humanizing" the dog. All dog owners, at some point in time, humanize our dogs. We treat them as we would want to be treated. Dogs begging at the table, we sneak them a bite of food off of our plate, so on and so forth. This goes to the crate also. Some see it as some sort of punishment, forcing the poor pup into solitary confinement like we would some mass murderer.
We have had Dougal since he was about 5 months old (he went through puppy school before he came home to us). Dougal is also a border collie, if you remember the Tasmanian devil cartoon, this is what a border collie puppy is like. High energy level is a bit of an understatement. We learned quickly that if we did force some "nap" times for Dougal he would simply keep going till he got overly tired, and like a toddler would become very hard to live with very quickly. Solution: Nap time! Early on it was about 4 hours during the day and slowly decreased as he got older. Seems to have worked very well for us. We have weaned off the crate over the last year, as he has to be close to me more often than not and has started to calm down due to age.
Back to the topic. Dogs have an inborn instinct to be den sleepers. They are very comfortable with it, it provides them with warmth and security in the wild especially when younger. So in todays thoughts of safe spaces and such it should be a no brainer. Crate training provides the puppy with it's own space to help reduce the stress of all the new sounds around it. Vacuum cleaners, kids playing, all these new sounds and smells can be overwhelming. Providing your puppy its own den can only help him/her. Also, it gives the new puppy mom or dad some much needed time to not have to worry about the pup getting into things that it should not be in. There is a large group of trainers that will advise to only let the pup out for a few hours a day and that is under direct owner supervision.
The early days for Dougal was about 4 hours in the crate and when let out to explore he had his house lead on. We also did on the spot training throughout the day with his basic obedience. We had 2 major outside adventures a day, one early in the morning and another around 4 or 5pm, to a very secluded dog park and potty breaks every 15-30 minutes when he was out of his kennel. At bedtime I would lead him to the crate and tell him it was nap time and he would go in, sometime rather reluctantly.
Most dogs like schedules, just like most of us. Once a schedule is set everything is so much easier for both dog and handler. This includes crate time.
Now, I said earlier that we were weaning Dougal away from the crate. Does this mean I am against them now? No, Dougal is my service dog and part of his job is waking me up from night terrors so having him confined in his crate would not be very helpful. He still has his crate where he can go when he feels the need but it is not a mandatory thing, it's just his safe spot.
