Opinions on this story???

[Twisterdog]

Anyone else not a huge fan of crate training? I remember my friend's mom telling me about it, and I did attempt it with Wylie a few times, but it just didn't seem right for me and Wylie. Am I alone? Everyone I know thinks it's the greatest thing ever.

No, you're not alone. I know lots of people who don't think it's the greatest thing ever. I personally crate only if I absolutely have to. I have one dog that is crated whenever we leave the house, because he picks fights and then get the worst of them when he is alone with the other dogs. But, I work at home, so he is crated for an hour or two once in a while, at the most. And I have two dogs that are crated at night, for potty issues. That's it, out of ten dogs.

I think crate training, like most things in the world, started out as a good idea and have ended up being used incorrectly and abused. There are many dogs who would have been euthanized long ago it it weren't for crate training. So thank goodness it exists for dogs like that.

However, a huge number of people use a crate for their dogs like they use the television for their kids - they are too busy or lazy to deal with them, so they plop them in the crate or in front of the TV. Sad. I am also opposed to crating a dog for ten hours per day, every day, while the owners are at work. Then the dog often goes back in the crate to sleep for eight hours at night. And sometimes back in the crate while the owners go out to dinner or to the movies. So, at least eighteen hours out of twenty four in a crate ... what kind of life is that?

If one doesn't have any time to spend with a dog, perhaps one shouldn't own a dog at all, instead of owning a dog that lives in cage almost all day and night.

Just MHO.

[Twisterdog]

They are crate trained for racing

That's putting it mildly, to say the least.

Racing greyhounds are kept in small wire cages all the time, except when they are actually running on the track. They are not housebroken or crate trained in any way, shape or form. They live their entire lives in a little wire box, except when they are running, which is maybe an hour or two per day. They eat, sleep and go to the bathroom in this cage.

I used to foster greyhounds for a rescue in Colorado. Almost every dog that came from the track had the imprints of the wire squares of the cage permanently scarred into its body in places, from laying on the wire for years.

Racing greyhounds don't know how to anything before they go to foster homes. They don't know how to go up and down stairs, how to walk on slick foors, how to choose when and what to eat on their own, how to go outside to the bathroom. They don't know what dirt or grass is, they've likely never seen a child or even woman before, sometimes. They don't know what birds are, or what furniture is. Vacuums, telephones and televisions can completely terrify them. Every move these dogs have ever made in their lives has been dictated to them. It's incredibly sad. And incredibly wonderful to watch one do somethig on its own for the first time.

I just wanted to elaborate, because the way these poor dogs live is a far cry from crate training.

[curiosityrats]

Yes, I know.

http://www.greyhounds.org

It'll make any animal person cry, scream, or both... Still animals like that need their crate (a nicer one than at the track obviously!) while they adjust to the life of a pet... My heart really goes out to those poor things. (Nevertheless, a crate can provide a sense of comfort/security to some dogs--if it is used PROPERLY.)

[carole]

OMG this is just awful, I never knew this is how the greyhound racing dog was treated, I am apalled, this is absolute cruelty in MO, cannot something be done to stop them living this way?

Really disgusting, and incredibly sad.

[Soledad]

Twisterdog,

I've seen a lot of abuse of crate training. The idea that you would get a dog, only to put it into a crate for nine to ten hours during the day and to again put the dog in their for eight hours a night is just repellent to me. Why bother getting a dog in the first place? That's no life at all as far as I'm concerned.

I certainly see how it can be a good thing, but my initial impressions of it were not excellent. It's easily abused by lazy dog parents.

[CathyBogart]

Star and Wilbur are crate trained, and it's been such a wonderful thing...When Star started getting such bad separation anxiety, my mom actually thought about re-homing her (after she ate $900 of brand new blinds and ripped up a $1100 door). Then we discovered the crate!

Wilbur is, we have decided, almost not housebreak-able at all, but with the crate we don't have to worry.

I would not have either of my dogs without the crate. Also, neither of them is in it for more than five hours a day. I loooove the crate!!

[micki76]

When Chester was a puppy we used the crate for several hours a day, with a break when I came home for lunch. We used it in a different way than most people do, though. We purchased the largest crate available and then we took the door off of it. We pushed the opening up against the door that the pet door is in and he had a potty available, as well as exercise and a way back in the house to safety, air-conditioning and his bed. It worked out great for him and us (before that he had chewed some carpet by the front door ). We only used it for about 6 months, then my husband was laid off and so he was home with Chester a lot. He gradually starting leaving him free and loose in the house when he went on trips to the store, etc. Well, Chester caught on quick and in about 2 weeks we were done with the crate.

[curiosityrats]

Any new puppy or kitten we got spent nights and times we were away closed in our bathroom. That is sorta like a crate I guess... We never thought of it as "training" just making sure we knew where the little things were and protecting them from all our grown (and generally pretty nasty) cats. It was our way of gradual introduction to the house and the other pets.

We son't actually own a crate or anything. The only animals that are in cages are my rats (and even they get several hours to romp around the room every day).

[curiosityrats]

I just realized what was bothering me so much about this story! You know, what made me question it.

The accident left him partially paralyzed on his left side, said his mother, Shawn Dewberry.

Asked by reporters if he felt any pain or was scared when he woke up Monday morning, he said no.

...

He will still be able to play video games, one of his passions. Dontavius, a student at Potter Elementary, enjoys playing his Nintendo video game. He was playing at the hospital.

``I'll be OK. I can still play video games with one hand,'' he said.

These ideas just don't follow! It says he was "partially paralysed" but it also says he felt nothing at all in that hand. It didn't hurt. He couldn't even feel it enough to wake up when the puppy was chewing through bone. To me, that says his hand must have been really "dead" and I could believe that.

However, if this WAS the case, would it make a lot of difference whether that dead hand had fingers or not? Are we to believe this will affect his video game playing or anything else? A hand with no nerve function can't be used for playing video games with or without fingers... A hand with partial nerve function is VERY difficult for the job (I know because I suffered some injuries that left a couple fingers tingly, and they make it awkward to do many things). Even so, if he had partial nerve function, he would have felt SOMETHING.

I should hope he could play video games one-handed because that would be the way he'd HAVE to have played them since the accident... Unless we are to believe his hand is completely numb to all sensation but he still has full function of its movements, enough to do a lot of fast and accurate button mashing and everything.

So how does this fit together exactly?? I wonder if maybe the story was verging on true, but someone threw in the video game thing as an "extra" to make it feel even more awful (this poor boy has been deprived of things he enjoys! As opposed to, the dog mutilated a dead and useless appendage...)


Oh, and he was "playing at the hospital"... Loss of blood and everything. Yeah right. My sister couldn't even watch TV for over a week after her car accident--she couldn't eat much either and barely managed to talk to people, and her injuries were no where as severe as losing several FINGERS.

(Sorry to bring up an older thread here, but there was something about this story that just didn't fit, and I couldn't figure out what until now. Heck of an implausible story if it's true! Still waiting to hear from the Snopes.com people.)