I belong to a Lab chat board and an surprised (and dismayed) at the number of people who crate their dogs both during the day and at night. Hopefully most are doing it out of ignorance and will learn better, but I do have issues with crating dogs simply as a means of keeping them out of trouble. In my opinion, it constitutes abuse and neglect.
Crating dogs is a good way of training them, but should not be the primary means of keeping them. We crated Sophie at night for the first couple of months that we had her, until we felt that we could trust her… and she became too restless in her crate, keeping us up at night. We exchanged her crate for a blanket to sleep on and had no problems.
We crated Dakota for several months at night until she became house trained and we could trust her not to destroy things or make a mess. We never personally crate trained Penny and Squirt, and Penny did destroy a few things, but it’s just a matter of dog-proofing the house; Squirt’s previous owner kept her constantly crated and we housetrained her in one day.
I believe that crating a dog should only be done on a limited basis such as traveling or training, but crating and kenneling should not be used as the primary means of controlling them. Many people believe that dogs are “den animals” and “enjoy” being locked up much of the time. That is a myth propogated by people looking for an excuse to neglect their dog.
Dogs are highly social animals and isolation creates behavior problems. Before a person gets a dog, they need to make darn sure that they have the patience, knowledge, and time to properly care for the dog. That means addressing and correcting problems, not ignoring them by locking them up simply because it’s easy for the owner.
(Link to source: Thoughts on crating dogs…)
