If you crate train your dog, you’ll find it useful in a wide variety of situations. For example:

** You can confine the dog if guests come over who are afraid of dogs.
** The dog is at home with being in a small enclosed space, so if he has to stay overnight at veterinarian’s it will be less stressful.
** Ditto any kind of emergency evacuation from your home.
** It’s very useful in potty training, as even young puppies will do their best not to soil their crate, unless they are left in it longer than they can manage.

I think that crate training is one of the best things you can do for your puppy or adult dog when you first get it. While some people have the opinion that crate training a puppy is cruel, it really isn’t if you don’t leave the pup or dog in the crate for long hours at a time. Dogs actually benefit from crate training — my list of examples above could go on and on. It seems to me that typically dogs who are used to their crate find it comforting and homey.

Our year-old Rottweiler, Lola, often needs to be confined in her crate for a while when we have guests over, so we can have a meal without her resting her chin on the table (I’m working on the training bit!) and she is very, very good about it. Specially when we give her a Kong with some peanut butter in it!

FOR MORE CRATE TRAINING TIPS:
See my page, http://training-dogs.com/crate-training.html

It’s got a lot of tips and is the second most popular page on the site. It includes some alternatives to crate training too