Animal Laws and Rights - Page 10

Heck, I want to stack my crates, simply to have more room in my crate and it's easier to clean up that way. There is no issues with crates stacked on top of each other so long your dogs get enough exercise and are well cared for.

I have to crate. I have no choice. If I couldn't crate I'd have to give up one of my males because one wants to kill the other.

Susie: Some homeless tramps take better care of their dog than some rich, successful, people.


SO TRUE. It's not about "stuff." It's about the dedication to the dog and willingness to care for the dog in the manner that is best for the dog. I see a LOT of neurotic pet dogs who the owners think are "spoiled." The dog is not getting what they need AT ALL but owner thinks new pink boots to match the hat show love.

BE, at least for me a crate is the almost last option. I don't think crating dogs on a daily basis is fair at all. In case there is no way to separate 2 dogs in something bigger than a crate or a blanked sized kennel should ring your own alarm bells.
I would love to own 2 or 3 GSDs, but I know that right now I am not even able to take proper care for one.
Sometimes reality and dreams don't fit together.

"Susie: Some homeless tramps take better care of their dog than some rich, successful, people.

SO TRUE. It's not about 'stuff.' It's about the dedication to the dog and willingness to care for the dog in the manner that is best for the dog. I see a LOT of neurotic pet dogs who the owners think are 'spoiled.' The dog is not getting what they need AT ALL but owner thinks new pink boots to match the hat show love."

Amen, Jenni and Susie. You have to take the dog's point of view and figure out what makes him happy, which is what I do with my own dogs and is a huge part of what I do as a dog trainer. What makes a dog happy depends on the dog, and you have to keep an open mind.

Dogs are not politically correct. They typically love to do messy, smelly, inconvenient things. People who really love and respect and understand dogs take a great deal of joy in that, even while they grumble as they clean up the mud splatted floors and do an unplanned bath with the dog who made his very own mudhole by chewing through the garden hose right before he was to go on an outing to visit friends.

As a trainer, I've had over-crated, over-bathed, over-protected, gooped over neurotic dogs come for a visit and go mad with joy when they ran like idiots through the tall grass and brush with the other dogs and wrestled and tumbled with them in a safe fenced area. Their so-called behavior problems just vanished.

Anyone who wants to see how happy dogs are running around loose together and just being dogs (rather than being 'fur babies' or 'things to win with') just needs to take a look at Kitkat's
video ^^^.

Sorry BE but there is ALL THE DIFFERENCE IN THE WORLD between a life spent mostly SHUT in a crate - OR a very small outside kennel/run - no matter how much care is taken of the dogs' needs - than of being either in or out of doors with room to move FREELY. I'd place my ex-employer's loose boxes over the small kennels my mentor used, and yet her dogs were well off for both space and attention and time outside, compared to some I have met elsewhere.

As for stacking crates - what do people do when one of the dogs spills water or has an accident, or vomits in its crate ? Unless they are of the solid plastic floored variety, the poor dog on the ground floor has to sit in it too, until the owner comes back to sort it out.

In response to Hundmutters post: :D 

[sigh] Nevermind, link doesn't work, cuz it's a FB video... :(

It showed 6 very happy dogs, mostly Vizslas, pogo-ing through a field of very long grass! 

 

 

@ Sunny - yes, it's just 'common sense' isn't it ?  One does not have to be a PETA member. (I am sorry we couldn't get to see the Vislas !)  As you know from my replies to an earlier thred, I do not believe there is any huge difference to a dog's working aptitude, overall demeanor or 'joi de vivre', between decent kenneling and indoor living; but I DO draw the line when people start relying too much on crating (or a very small kennel) for everyday use. It's one thing putting a housedog in even a good-sized kennel for 2 weeks while the owner is on holiday; it's another entirely to be condemning any dog to live out the majority of its life in a comparitively tiny space, day in, day out. Like I said ^^ it's just 'jail time'. Even prisoners get exercise periods, so the well-exercised dog is no better off.

Have you noticed how when you use crates indoors, the dog will happily relax in its crate WITHOUT NEEDING TO LOCK IT IN ? Clearly for the sort of use BE is referencing, those crate doors are shut. It isn't the same thing.

There's also a difference between having a stack of crates against one wall of a training room, for holding dogs while another dog is being worked [the doors of the crates would obviously be closed], and using such a stack of crates as the primary living quarters of the dogs. The former is a sensible use of space for a temporary period of time--hell, most groomers have this kind of set-up, as do veterinary clinics. I know of breeders who also use this type of set-up to crate train a litter of puppies before they go to their new homes, and I don't have any problem with that, either--the pups aren't living in the crate, they're simply getting acclimated to them.

Unless there's some sort of emergency, such as a bad storm or a wild fire wiping out one's outdoor kennels, using that sort of set-up as the primary housing for one's dogs, OTOH, tells me that the person doesn't really have sufficient room, and perhaps resources, for the number of dogs they're keeping, let alone time for them. If the dogs are still being stashed in stacks of crates a year or more after the emergency, however, then you're back to the lack of sufficient resources for the number of dogs being kept.

Hexe:  True, as usual.

https://www.aphis.usda.gov/animal_welfare/downloads/breeders/commercial-dog-breeders-housing-part-2-slides.pdfUnited States Department of Agriculture commercial dog kennel minimum regulations.