It's 3:30 p.m. on a Saturday, and Angus is in his crate. He's had a very busy day so far — up at 5:30 a.m., two walks, a little "name game," some corrections when he barked at a woman on a bench, some huge praise and treats when he didn't bark at a jogger, a little tennis ball fetch, a little tug, a lot of romping with his big sister Rosie in the yard.
But now he is in his crate, and he is sleeping, and my husband and I can do whatever we like without those puppy fears — you know, fears that he'll chew up an electrical cord or jump on the coffee table or suddenly mark in the living room. The puppy is in his crate, and we are free.
We did not always have this freedom with our dogs. Toby, as I've mentioned here before, was my first dog, and I knew nothing. I didn't crate-train him because I thought crates were cruel, like jail, like being in the pound. Consequently, he roamed freely throughout my apartment, destroying my couch, eating my then-boyfriend's favorite ball cap and, for several months, peeing regularly behind the easy chair in the living room.
My husband and I tried to crate-train Boscoe, our second dog, but back then we were not convinced of the need for a crate. We crated him until he was housebroken and then set him free. And with Boscoe it hardly mattered: He was the sweetest, mellowest, most obedient dog on the planet, and he didn't need to be confined. He never did anything wrong.
This was the dog who, as a tiny puppy, squeezed under the backyard fence to freedom but instead of making a break for it only trotted around to the front of the house, sat down on the porch steps and waited for us to find him.
Our third dog, Riley, was terrified of everything, and that included being in a crate. We don't know what happened in his first home, but it wasn't good. While we did crate him for the first few months, he never got used to it. It was heartbreaking. I would drive home every day on my lunch break to let him out, and he was so happy to be in the yard. And then when lunch was over I'd have to physically wrangle him back into the crate — he'd actually spread his four legs as wide as possible to keep from fitting inside the crate door, and I'd peel them off, one by one, and stuff him in.
As I drove away I could hear his screams and howls. It killed me.
As soon as it was responsible to let Riley stay home unsupervised without being incarcerated, we took the crate apart and stored it away. He never used it again, although he did stake out little den areas — under the kitchen table, and under the dining room table.
