Do I Need to Crate-Train My Dog?

Yes! The answer is yes. Here’s why from a professional dog trainer:

Physical Safety

Crates give your dog a safe place to stay when you can’t supervise him. This is really, really important for puppies! Not only does it keep your puppy from eating potentially dangerous (and medically expensive) items, but it keeps your house and belongings intact.
Adult dogs need to be kept safe too. For example, if your house is traditionally treated for bugs, a crate is a great place to keep Fido until the chemicals have dried.

Emotional Safety

For dogs who are aggressive or scared of new people (or certain types of people like children), the crate is an indispensable tool. To help these dogs, we have to teach them that new people always mean good things. If you have guests over and don’t want to work on training (or don’t want to work it the whole time), putting the dog in the crate keeps him from having a scary encounter that messes up his training.

Long-Term Options

Even if someone tells me they don’t plan to use the crate, I still encourage them to train it. Why? We can’t foresee the future!
What if the dog injures himself and is on strict crate rest for 6 weeks? That’s definitely not the time to teach him to enjoy his crate. Crate training early gives you the option of using it in the future for medical reasons, travel, or boarding (we required prior, positive crating experience to boarding dogs at Koinonia and I still require it for Board and Train).