My dog was already crate trained when we rescued him. He was happy in there at night and when we left him alone. For the first few weeks. Until he realized “Hey, why does the cat get to roam around?”
He learned to nose open the locks on the crate door from the inside. So, we started reinforcing the locks with carabiners. Then a few days later we went out to dinner, and in those few hours he (then under 30 pounds, btw), gnawed through the metal bars enough to make a head-sized whole just shy of being big enough to fit his whole body through. He shredded the plastic mat on the bottom of the crate in the process. At that point our choices were to buy a steel reinforced crate and hope he didn’t kill himself trying to escape it, or give him the run of the apartment. We chose the latter, and he is happier and safer for it.
Please don’t assume all dogs have the same personalities or the same needs.
@smulder: I agree re: cats. But I’m going to be willfully naive this time and say we can have a discussion without vilifying each other.
