Our dogs have never stated in the crate much but I’ve always wanted the to be comfortable in their crates. Because Oscar is so destructive, if I’m leaving the room for 1 minute, he goes into the crate. Cooper still isn’t 100% trustworthy with his bathroom manners so he goes into the crate if I’m not giving him my undivided attention and it’s been more than about half an hour since he’s been outside. Neither of them complain about going into the crate.
Since they’re so rarely in the crate (Oscar sleeps with us but Cooper sleeps in the crate – again, it’s the bathroom manners) so we have fairly small crates but I had ordered bigger crates from Chewy a while back. I got them each one and they’re way larger than what they had been using. Cooper’s crate was one we had bought for Rita so he was pretty much outgrowing it. The chart for the new crates recommended size 24 for their full grown sizes (which Oscar is full grown but Cooper isn’t) but I got the size 30 just to give them more room.
We had bought the new crates in October but had never set them up. Sunday I noticed Cooper with his nose poking through the crate and suggested to Vince that we set up the new crates. See his nose there.
I expected Oscar to be apprehensive about it and he was but with his blanket in there, he decided it was ok. Cooper went right into his and when he got tired during the day, he would get in it and take a nap. Oscar so far has only gone into his when we tell him to go in.
Normally the crates are against the wall and kinda behind the sofa since we only put the dogs in them when we’re leaving the room but since Cooper seems to like going into his, we’ll probably put them more into the room so Cooper will feel like he’s still part of the family, even when he’s in his crate. Making room for them is going to mean re-arranging some of my cross stitching bins. I thought about moving the long storage ottoman to the sewing room but both of them like sitting on that to look out the window. I’ll figure it out!