Houndstooth Tales and Tails - The hilarity of everyday life
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Since we became adult dog owners, crates have been a part of our lives. When we adopted our first Greyhound, the adoption group required us to have a crate to help transition her into home life and I have always been glad we did. As new Greyhound owners, we were warned to watch for signs that our new dog was “too keen” on cats. I had no idea what “too keen” meant in those early days, but Treat seemed intent on making friends with our two cats. One of our cats was well-adjusted and the other was…not. The crate helped both our dog and our cat make the transition. It was a safe, comfortable, familiar place for Treat and two weeks after she came to live with us, she was ready, in her own time, to move away from using it on a daily basis.
Lots To Choose From
Months later when we adopted Hawk, our second Greyhound, we had a much rougher time and a lot of that was because the crate was being used by Mr. Taleteller’s sister as they got their new puppy adjusted to the house. Clearly, they needed it more than we did. It became obvious that Hawk would need a crate of his own, though, and we got one for him after a few weeks at PetSmart®. It turned out that he needed to be in the crate all the time when we were gone. He was a nervous sort of dog and the crate was a safe place for him. At that point, we had Blueberry, too, and although she did not need a crate while we were gone, she wanted one. Every afternoon when I let Hawk out of his crate, she would beeline to get in there and take over the spot. Most nights she spent quite a bit of time laying in there with the door open. Every one of our Greyhounds has transitioned to home life with a crate, as well as the foster Greyhounds we watched through the years.
Actually, Morgan and Küster have been trained to use crates from the beginning, too. While we are gone, Morgan has to be crated. Our scary experience with the broken window taught us that. Küster’s job requires him to be comfortable with a crate, and we trained him to use his from the time we brought him home. Both of them love their crates and it’s a comfortable, happy place for them. It probably helped all of us to survive Küster’s puppyhood, too. We left the house every day without worrying about what he would get into and it kept him safe from a lot of things since he was a fearless puppy. Crate training has been an easy and worthwhile process for us and without it, I’m not sure Küster would have left our house still standing.
Driving Miss Morgan
Through the years we’ve used crates for a variety of reasons. When we have a dog who is sick, containing them in the crate helps to protect the house and keep them resting away from the other dogs. Traveling with Morgan and Küster always involves using a crate and it helps us to keep everyone settled and safe. We have had several dogs prescribed crate rest by our veterinarian through the years, and I’ve always been glad that our dogs were already comfortable and happy with their crates so that it wasn’t an upsetting experience for them. It was just a casual, calm, fact of life event. Every time they go in the crate, they are rewarded and that seems to do the trick for them.
If you’re looking for a crate for your own dog, PetSmart has a wide variety of crates on sale this month. Since different pets have different needs you can find everything from soft-sided crates to plastic and wire crates with a lot of accessories to help make the crate a safe, happy place for your pet. Our dogs love going shopping with us there and we like being able to get their opinion on what we’re shopping for. Do you use crates for your dog? Why or why not?
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