The dog crate is the safest and most effective form of confinement. Socialize your puppy to it immediately and continue to use it through maturity (2–3 years). It provides safety and respect in many areas. Crating provides a housebreaking tool, structure, acceptance of boundaries, puppy safety, property safety, and relationship preservation.
Check out Make Your Dog’s Crate His Favorite Place.
Housebreaking
The crate is an excellent housebreaking tool. The goal of its use is to stimulate cleanliness. Puppies instinctively don’t want to soil their sleeping or living area.
Structure
When the crate is used for structure, it is the single easiest way to establish a “follow the- rules” appreciation in your dog. Simply using the crate on a regular basis allows the puppy to accept the concept of rules of the house.Acceptance of BoundariesWhile the crate is a physical boundary, its use generates the acceptance of boundaries in your dog’s life. This helps achieve one of your main puppy goals.
Puppy’s Safety
Certainly there are times when you cannot be “tied” to your dog or supervise her every action. These are the times when crate usage is also positive and helpful. Any dog, uneducated in household rules, can get into danger when you’re not looking. Household dangers range from puppies falling down the steps to puppies chewing wires, ingesting the wrong items, etc. Using your crate for those moments when you need to take your attention away from watching your puppy will guarantee safety until you can watch her again.Check out Puppy Care 101: How to Make Crates Fun.
- image sourceProperty Safety
Nothing is more devastating than seeing your one-hundred-dollar pair ofshoes ripped into pieces by your puppy’s side, and the likes. Contrary to popularbelief, these things are accidents in puppyhood, but can be prevented by using the crate for the times when your puppy is unsupervised.
Relationship Saver
Using your crate to give you and your puppy some time away from each other is important in maintaining a good relationship. When we, or our puppies, become tired and stressed, both run the risk of acting inappropriately. Our voices and body language become stressed while our puppies can end up making destructive mistakes. Whether it’s losing our patience or a valuable item, our relationship can become compromised.