We used a crate very successfully to housetrain Bella and had used crates before with our other dogs. Even when we got Bella the breeder said "I hope you are planning to use a crate for housetraining."

Bella however never took to it as her home or den. When she saw me getting ready to leave for work in the morning she would walk over to it and get inside and I would simply close the door. When we were all home in the evenings I never saw her ever enter it. As soon as she could be trusted she got her freedom to be "queen of the entire house" and the crate was put away. To be honest, I have worked only part time for the past 20 years so my dogs were never crated for very long hours. I think I may have had some guilt if they had been. Then again Carrie knows that my animals sleep on my bed too so I, like Jackie and others here am a softy, although I enjoy her presence there as much as she enjoys being there. Carrie and Dixieland Dancer are very respected folks here at Pet Talk and neither would ever argue, rather only give their opinions. When we ask questions here we had better be ready to hear answers. Some of them we may like and maybe some of them we won't like. The fact that we are here asking questions in the first place is great, because it means we love our animals enough to want to try to possibly find better ways of caring for them.