I don’t know what most people’s thoughts are on crated their dogs, but I’ll just come right out and say I AM A CRATER! I believe that for the safety of my dog and my house when we are upstairs or out of the house our dog needs to be in her crate.
I’m sure there are a million people that will tell me how cruel I am and whatnot, and that’s fine… you do one thing with your dog and I do another with mine… and let me tell you why.
Last night I was upstairs and my friend went to Taco Bell. Instead of being put in her crate our dog was left downstairs and the baby gate was put up as to ensure that she didn’t come upstairs. My son comes upstairs to inform me that we have termites and they have made a hole in the wall. I dismiss it as ‘where in the heck has this kid been? that hole has been there for almost 2 years!’ (Yes, we have a small hole at the bottom of the stairs where an unknown person kicked in…. family drama blah… I have an idea but whatever…different story).
Yes, that is a flipping hole that my dog somehow made in my wall. How? I have no idea. Pissed? Yes, I most definitely am! There was no small hole for this dog to even begin this with, so I am still completely baffled. My thoughts, are that maybe there previously was a hole before we moved in, it was patched and it was easy for her to break through. This took place right by the baby gate, which brings me to believe that she was trying to claw her way around the gate to get upstairs.
I’m still completely speechless.
When my friend, Jenise, got home from Taco Bell this is how she found Sophie. Nobody said anything to her, she just KNEW that she did MAJOR WRONG!
And this is why I crate… do you blame me?
That is so crazy. I don't blame you though. If I had a dog I'd be a crater too. My in-laws have three and it's not rare that they come home to garbage or clothes chewed up and strewn all over the living room. Lock those bad dogs up when you're at work!
We crate too. I just don't trust our dog out when we aren't around.
I'm a crater too. I have been trying to get my mother in law to crate too but she won't listen to me. The dog has chewed 3 couches. Don't you think after the first one she would have learned?
We crate too…well, at least we did when she was a puppy/teenager, now she's old & trained. Anyways, I just wanted to say that we had the SAME thing happen when she was a puppy…in two areas of drywall in our living room. Each happened in the 5 minutes I was in the laundry room putting clothes in the dryer. -Thank God my FIL is a contractor & fixed it right up for us.
Keep up the crate training, it really works & dogs love it since it gives them a place to den.
I can't blame you for crating at all. we would have been beyond pissed had that happened to us.
If we ever own a dog again, we will crate again and probably will crate any animals we aquire as long as we have them.
you remember Pismo? he was an older dog but he had major separation anxiety and would get up on the counters and eat whatever he could that was around or he would chew up pacifiers or toys when we were gone. when that happened we started leaving him outside when we'd go to the base, which was down the road for lunch or whatever. but circumstances there are entirely different as well, that is where I think crating is good.
I don't think crating an animal is evil. I think it teaches the dog boundaries and helps them understand that there is a place for them and a place for you and your things. we've also always trained our dogs that later on their crate can be their own private space when they don't want to be bothered. and that has always worked out well for us even after they've aged.
I hope you don't have anymore wall problems with Miss Sophie!
Oh. My. GOD. How the eff did she DO that?! Hell yes to crates. People who are offended by crates must have an endless budget to replace things ruined by animals.