Welcome SnoGrl & Sadie. Good on you for getting a dog from a shelter! It says a great deal about the wonderful people on this board that they can have a lively discussion about the pros & cons of 'crating' dogs..but always remain respectful of each other. Shows why PetTalk is the best animal forum ever!

I'm glad Sadie is now settling in so well to her new home & family & conditions.

Now for a confession...when I first accessed dog boards that were mainly sited in the US, I kept wondering what people meant when they talked about 'crate training'. I didn't even know what a crate was...yet I'm very involved with dog rescue activities here in Australia.

Soon I realized a 'crate' seemed to mean a largish cage where you set up a 'den-like' place for the dog...where it could have its own space & be assigned to when freedom of movement around the home wasn't wanted. And the 'crate' seemed to be kept indoors...in the house or a ventilated garage or something.

I wondered why that 'crating' didn't mean a thing to me from Australian conditions. I can only guess that we have different climatic conditions so our ways of setting up a 'den' like that are different. Like we make use of outdoor areas...a purpose-built kennel with dog-run attached is one example (with big dogs & when there's lots of garden space.) Australians love their big 'backyards', as they're called. Also we have a lot of places like sheltered verandahs & sunrooms & laundry rooms attached to the backs of our houses...these are often used as dog dens (with a dog door leading to an outside spot for toileting). This is what we use for our own dogs.
I've seen largish cages used to confine dogs for security reasons & for short periods in places like dogshows, vet surgeries & at the groomers. But I've never seen one of those in anybody's house or apartment (we call them 'units' or 'townhouses'.)
So it's not a matter of whether I believe in 'crating' or not...there seems to be other ways of doing things in our conditions here.

[ August 28, 2001: Message edited by: Angels3 ]