I’m finding more and more that people have trouble with the thought of leaving their furr-kid in a crate when the leave the house. I understand this completely because I used to feel the same way.
This is Cayce. We lost Cayce a few years ago at the ripe old age of 17. I have to tell you I have never been more connected with anyone before or since. The thought of crating him broke my heart so I never tried. We used a baby gate to confine him in the kitchen. Everyday we came home to a surprise. He shredded the legs on kitchen table and all the chairs. And as if that wasn’t bad enough, he chewed two drawer fronts and scratched the door frame. We would have been a landlord’s nightmare if I hadn’t taken a woodworking class and was able to repair all the damage he did before we moved.
Besides the phyical damage he did to the apartment, what’s even scarier is to think about the harm that could have come to him from swallowing all the things that could have punctured his intestines or gotten stuck in his throat. Had he gotten into the cleaning stuff under the sink he would have been poisoned. I shudder at the thought of all the things that could have happened. It took a long time but he finally grew up and we were able to trust him with the run of the house. But looking back, we were lucky.
Enter Henry. We brought him home when he was 8 weeks old. Now we had a dilemma. We had two grown dogs that had the run of the house (
this is Piper) ( 
this is Spanky (may he rest in peace)). How could we ever crate Henry? He was a little baby. It was a no brainer. If we wanted him to be safe we had to make him safe.
We started the learn process the way you’re supposed to. But geez, Henry is strong-willed. First to give some info on crate training. The crate should be big enough for them to be able to stand up, turn around and lay down. That’s all the room they need. All collars should be removed so that accidental choking can’t happen. No food or water because it may cause them to not be able to hold it and mess in the crate. When you crate train a pup you need to put them in the crate for short periods of time to start. A key rule is to wait for 15 minutes of silence before you let them out if they cry when you put them in. Taking them out while they are crying will only reinforce that if they cry you will come to their rescue. And please, please don’t ever use the crate as a punishment. They will then begin to associate the crate as a bad thing.
Back to Henry. The first day of crate training was hell. Or at least I’ll say that Pat looked more worse for the wear than Henry. I happened to be at work when it happened. The story goes that he was working himself up into a frenzy when left in the crate for the first time. Pat went in to another room and waited for him to quiet down. Every time he would quiet down Pat would start the clock. As it got close to 15 minutes Henry would start all over again. And so it went, over and over for a good portion of the afternoon. But in the end Pat won!
Henry finally figured out that going into his “house” meant getting a special cookie and that we always manage to find our way back to let him out. It became all good for him. There are times now when we notice that he isn’t sleeping next to us on the couch and we ask each other “where’s Henry?” We start calling him and when he doesn’t come running we realize that he is right in the same room with us laying in his “house” looking at us like we have lost our minds.
Just recently we learned that there is another bonus to crate training. Henry hurt his back a couple of months ago and one of the things that he had to do to heal was to stay quiet and not jump. We were so happy that he was crate trained because it was painless to put him in his crate when we weren’t able to be with him. I think it really helped him heal faster.
So I believe there are more pro’s than con’s to crate training your furr-kidd. The most important thing we have to do for them is to keep them safe. With them being in a crate when you’re not home you know that they are not getting into anything that is going to be harmful to them. And from our experience, after a short while their crate becomes their safe haven, their place to get away from us.
