Pedigreeddogs.info Dog info, dog products and more …

Choosing the right pet crate for your dog requires you to think through how you’re going to use the pet crate. If the pet crate is going to be used to housebreak your dog using the time-tested crate-training method, you need to get a crate that will give your dog room to lie down and be comfortable. The idea is to make sure the dog has enough room, but not too much room.

If your dog has too much room within the pet crate, he could be tempted to use the bathroom in one end of the crate and lie down at the other end. Instead, if you choose a pet crate that ensures that your dog takes up most of the room inside the crate, he won’t be tempted to soil any area that he’s going to have to lie down in. The crate should have nice, soft bedding inside so your dog feels like the pet crate is a nice place to lie down and relax in. This takes advantage of your dog’s den-making instinct.

Of course, you also have to take into account the future size of the dog, if you are starting with a puppy. If the dog will eventually be quite large, you may have to get a pet crate for crate training and then make a decision on whether to get another crate when the dog is full-grown. A crate that would be perfect for a full-grown Saint Bernard, for instance, would probably be way too large to crate-train a Saint Bernard puppy.

Another key decision concerns where the pet crate is going to be set up within the home. Or, maybe you just need a pet crate to confine your dog during travel. If it is going to be set up in one place within the home, is it going to be in an out of the way location or is it going to be centrally located and need to be an attractive addition to the interior look of the home?

If appearance is going to be an issue, you’ve got a number of options. You can start out with a wire crate and add an attractive dog crate cover. This serves two purposes: it gives your dog more of a feeling of privacy and safety and a crate cover also improves the appearance of the pet crate.