Gating off a room or two also still provides more
space than a crate.
You could buy an «exercise pen» (a larger enclosed
space than a crate) and ask your dog into the pen and play with them a few times.
Not exact matches
To answer that question, one needn't look any further
than the dozens of damning undercover investigations into agribusiness operations released over the last several years: chickens crammed so tightly into tiny cages that they can't even spread their wings, living in the same
space with the rotting corpses of their cage - mates; mother pigs unable to even turn around for months on end inside their gestation
crates; factory farm workers sadistically abusing animals; and more.
We had one minor crisis where we realized we had more things
than space in the shipping
crate we had bargained for.
While they aren't the most attractive options, and can be noisier
than other types of
crates, wire
crates are also easy to clean, and offer removable panels so your puppy can grow into the
space.
Many brands are more expensive
than this, and some similar
crates are made with thinner wire and have larger
spaces between the wire.
In purely practical terms, the
crate you will need to contain a Chihuahua in comfort is going to be a lot more
space friendly,
than the
crate you'll need to contain a Boxer.
They create a safe indoor
space for your puppy that is larger
than a
crate, and more open.
It's perfectly okay to buy a larger
than usual
crate as long as there are divider panels which you can use to make the
space for
crate training a lot smaller.
Lucy is already somewhat trained to spend time in the
crate, but rather
than seeing the
crate as her den, as her safe
space, she gets anxious when left alone.
The principle behind using a
crate for housetraining is that dogs are very clean creatures and don't like a urine - soaked rug in their living
spaces any more
than you do.
For adult dogs, you can certainly provide a
crate that is more
than ample in
space for the dog.
Temporarily (for no more
than an hour at a time) confining a puppydog to a small
space (e.g., a dog
crate) inhibits elimination, since the dog does not want to soil her sleeping area.
In short, dogs who are stable, confident, obedience trained, and
crate trained will acclimate more easily into a new
space (smaller or larger)
than dogs without these qualities.