Using A Crate To Save Your Home From Your New Puppy

Many new puppy owners don’t realize that a puppy needs to understand his boundaries and limits. Chewing on furniture or shoes or other items is to be expected if a puppy doesn’t understand that he shouldn’t do so. Housebreaking training needs to start young, and once the puppy is housebroken then the owner can be more comfortable letting the puppy out of an enclosure. See how a dog crate can be used to help housebreak a dog.

Before you bring your new puppy home ensure that you have a few things in order for him:

• a crate and/or playpen or puppy playpen or child/dog gates that can secure areas of your home.
• dog food bowl and water bowl, both to be tip proof.
• chew toys that allow a teething puppy to chew something acceptable.
• crate bedding, such as a soft baby blanket or fleece bedding.
• determine the areas of the house that will be off limits and the areas that are not. Get down on your hands and knees and look for potential problems that your puppy can get into like wires or items that can be swallowed and choked on, shoes that can be chewed on, etc. Teething baby animals like puppies and kittens, love the feel of leather as they teethe. So, leather shoes, handbags or belts need to be out of reach.
• If parts of your house have lead paint, keep your puppy away from those locations. Puppies may chew on walls or the molding that runs through doorways.

To keep your puppy from chewing on furniture while you’re not home, you can confine him to a small room, like a kitchen, with newspaper on the floor so he can relieve himself. You can also crate him if you will not be gone longer than six hours at a time.

A new puppy shouldn’t be crated for longer than six hours. Adult dogs can often go up to eight hours without going to the bathroom, but puppies need to go more frequently. Crating a dog any longer can be unhealthful for your dog. If you need to leave the dog for ten hours a day, he is better off contained to a small room with vinyl flooring, like a kitchen, with newspaper lining a section of it to allow him to relieve himself. Gate the area off so he cannot soil carpeting in other rooms. For a healthy dog, crating should really only be limited to bedtime when the family is asleep and just a few short hours (up to three or four) occasionally during the day when the family is out. If you expect to crate your puppy or dog longer because no one is home, the dog is better off limited to a room so he can get some exercise or taken out and walked by a neighbor.

The best use of the crate in keeping your puppy from chewing your furniture or rugs is to crate your puppy at bedtime when everyone else is going to sleep and the puppy cannot be watched. Ensure that your puppy goes to the bathroom before going into the crate for the night and take him out of the crate first thing in the morning when you get up and take him outside to go to the bathroom right away. Delaying allowing the dog to relieve himself will likely result in an accident in the house.

Dogs that have been crated too long, such as throughout the day and in the night, spending more time in the crate than out, typically develop physical ailments such as malformation of musculature and other structural problems. Crating needs to be done judiciously so as not to adversely affect the health of the dog. If you take care in learning how to crate your dog, you can protect the health of your dog while also protecting your home and furniture from damage.

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