I had an apartment and then a new neighbor moved in next door. She put her dog in a cage that was in her bedroom closet. That bedroom closet was on the wall opposite my headboard side of my bed. Of course, when she went to work that dog would bark all day. I attempted to complain to the apartment manager but guess what happened? Nothing happened because that apartment manager also had a dog that she put in a cage and kept in her apartment while she was away.
In a different apartment I was on the ground floor. There was a lady above me who would let her dog do its business on her concrete patio which was above mine and then she would sweep it over the edge until my patio below looked like a minefield of dog turds.
Dogs need yards and should not be locked up in a cage or in an apartment nor should their barking invade the space of others.
If you own a dog, live in an apartment, and the noise from that dog’s barking is inside the apartments of your neighbors then you are a shitty inconsiderate person!
A lot of apartment have size/weight limits for dogs for sort-of that reason. But never underestimate how large a Jack Russell sounds when it’s zooming on the floor above you lol.
I fully agree dogs should not be crated all day and left alone. That’s horrible for them. It takes some work, and you have to accept some things will get chewed up at first, but you can absolutely acclimate your dogs to being alone while you’re away and behaving. When I’m away, my dogs mostly just sleep until I get back and will only bark as I’m leaving or as I’m walking to the door.
I’m not saying crates don’t have their purpose, and I have crated my dogs, but never all day, every day.
Hopefully you mean just for when you’re transporting them or something. No valid reason to put them into a cage in your own home
Mostly, yeah.
If you do proper crate training and don’t use it as a punishment device or leave them in there for long periods of time, they’ll associate it as their safe space. When I travel with my dogs, I’ll bring the crate in, and they’ll go to it if they get overwhelmed with the unfamiliar environment/people. In those cases, the door isn’t even attached. One dog is small and the other medium, so they just curl up together in the giant crate I bought with plenty of room to spare / stand up / move around (it’s made for Great Danes and other extra large breeds).
At home, I had to put the puppy in the crate at night for the first week or so because she was getting into, chewing up, or peeing all over everything while I was sleeping. For a dog of her size, the massive crate was more like a kennel. After the first week and she got used to things, I folded the crate back up and put it away until the next time I need it to travel.
It’s fine to have doggy beds or those doggy houses. If it was a thing they couldn’t freely go in and out of, that’s just a cage and that’d obviously be another matter.
I mean you didn’t have to but I’m sure it makes things simpler than waking up and making sure they’re getting up to no good and training them without the cage. It does often like an easy way out. Poor doggies.
I feel like you’re picturing a battery cage like are used in those inhumane factory farms. That is not the case for what I’m describing.
The crate I have is 4 feet tall, 5 feet long, and 4 feet deep. The puppy was a 5 month old Jack Russell that weighed 16 pounds. Babies in play pens are more constrained than she was. Plus, she was only in there overnight from about midnight to 6 am with pee breaks at 2 and 4am… And that was only for the first week. After that and since, she’s slept in the bed. A few weeks after that, once she was on a pee schedule, she was able to be given free reign of the house at night (e.g. I stopped closing the bedroom door at night).
I’m generally against crating because most people don’t use them correctly. Dogs like to have safe spaces. Eventually, the whole house becomes their safe space, but it takes time for them to adjust; the crate, when used correctly, can give them a space space until they feel at home.
I’ve always wondered how people insisting on the cages deal with the idea of locking the dog up being good and necessary for the dog. Do some just consider it not feeling safe for the dog unless the human can lock it up and make sure the dog can’t leave? Because what separates the cages/crates from a doggy bed with a roof is that lockable door.
Giving the dog their own safe place is one thing, locking them in there is another.
It does sound far separated from people routinely putting their dog in a cage for 8+ hours because they can’t be arsed to train them. Though I’ve just considered pee in unfortunate places and other “misbehaviour” just something you sign up for when you get a puppy. Takes a while to train them. Sometimes it’s a big inconvenience and temporarily using a cage to make sure they don’t fuck everything up would be alright, but it’s more of a crutch and definitely not something you always do as a matter of course.
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I think part of having a puppy is accepting that some stuff gets chewed but making sure there’s nothing dangerous for them to chew on. At least that’s the accepted way of doing the puppy training here. Some use cages for it but it’s usually frowned upon.
This is a false and stupid statement made by someone who doesn’t understand dog behavior
Please tell me about the necessity of you locking your dog in a cage in your own home.
Dogs are burrowing animals and they feel the most relaxed when in a small space. That’s normally where they eat and sleep.
That doesn’t mean it’s a necessity but it also doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with crate training. And in fact, it’s the most sure fire way to potty train them, because it makes them feel like they’re in their home.
Well locking them in there would what’s wrong with it. If you’re not doing that then there’s no issue