[JakodaCD OA]

lies, your new puppy is one cutie !!

The one thing I found using a vari kennel in my car, every one of my dogs would get car sick in them,,switched to wire and they were fine,,

Mine never freaked out being in vari kennels, but the car sickness thing, made me stick with wire crates even in the house, I'm not sure if it's to claustrophobic (as above poster said), or just that with wire, they have better air ventilation??

who knows, but I'm a wire crate person myself

 

[adamdude04]

I made my own crate from wood. A temp one for him to grow in. Now that he's pretty much full grown, I'm going to build a really nice one.

For the floor, I'm using stone tile. LED rope lights on the top edges for lighting inside, a few nice plexi-glass windows, and a nice door handle for the "storm door" looking door.

Cost as much as a nice platic crate, but much nicer by far. And custom to how I want. Ontop will be a small box for the cats and their feeding station (dog eats their food).

 

[elisabeth_00117]

I did wire crates when Stark was little, that and the X-Pen - not sure if you remember my set up or not. I liked the way it worked out and will most definitely set it up that way again.

I just got a Vari kennel when I started SchH. It's for the car only, haven't used it inside.

I like the idea that I can see the pup through the wire when I am in bed, but that's just my preference. I find the wire crates easier to keep clean as well.

 

[Rerun]

We have both and all the dogs will readily use all of them. I prefer the plastic ones in recent years because I've discovered they contain fur, water (rainy days) and in general - dirt. They also don't scratch and scuff the floors.

The wire crates I always have to put a blanket under it, and if it's been raining for a week straight (welcome to spring and fall in Indiana) and the yard is saturated, they come in sopping wet and muddy after every potty break. The plastic crates contain this and I can easily clean them out. The wire crates allow them to shake muddy water all over the walls, floor, etc.

Not fun,

I do keep the 54" midwest set up though I have a sheet over it. I don't like stuffing Micah who is huge into a smaller crate.

I buy most crates lightly used from craigslist, so I buy what I need at the time. But if I was buying them new I would buy the biggest size of the furrari's and line them up side by side. I LOVE my furrari cage. It is so nicely made and so easy to take apart to clean because it has big buckles/snaps (not sure what to call them) vs the screws on the vari kennels (have a couple of those too).

 

[CaseysGSD]

Your story with the four night screaming in plastic and then quiet in wire is EXACTLY how it went for us.even when I pulled the door of the plastic crate right next to my bed so she could see me was not working, I really think the plastic crates get too hot, being all closed in with body heat and all that fur. We went right to a 42" wire at 15 weeks and she never had a accident in it but some of them do come with a divider if you want to make it smaller for now without having to buy 2 crates while your pup is growing

 

[Ruthie]

We read that you should set the crate up like a den by throwing a blanket over it, but Bison hated it like that. He did fine in a metal crate next to the bed.

 

[Ruthie]

Your story with the four night screaming in plastic and then quiet in wire is EXACTLY how it went for us.even when I pulled the door of the plastic crate right next to my bed so she could see me was not working, I really think the plastic crates get too hot, being all closed in with body heat and all that fur. We went right to a 42" wire at 15 weeks and she never had a accident in it but some of them do come with a divider if you want to make it smaller for now without having to buy 2 crates while your pup is growing

We did the divider thing with Moose, Gator, and Bison. Worked well for us.

 

[onyx'girl]

I was very, very lucky that Karlo's breeders put the pups in crates alone to eat(as they got older) and then left them inside for a bit to get desensitised to them.
They also took them for rides in the van to get use to travel in a crate.
I used the same, plastic varikennel for Karlo as a wee pup, and used the wire one when he outgrew the plastic.
I put the varikennel right by the bed and put my fingers inside so he could sniff them when he started fussing. It was late April, and my house was always on the cool side-no overheating that time of year.
By the 2nd night he was settled in just fine. I also brought some crate pads home from the breeder so he had familiar scents the first couple of nights.
I never used a divider in the wire crate, but he held it for much longer than the average puppy. I only had 3 accidents in the house in his whole housebreaking.

 

[PupperLove]

We started Jackson off in a wire crate, and the fact that he could see out of it made him nuts if he couldn't be right there with us, so I usually covered it with a blanket. When he got bigger, we bought the same exact Remmington plastic crate that LaRen posted. We decided to go with plastic because it is more confined and could be used as a portable shelter if we did any out-door activities with the dogs. If he can't see me, he doesn't know that I'm not right there and he cries less. We took the plastic crates camping with us and they worked nicely as 'dog houses' and of course, made the dogs feel at home.

 

[Rerun]

I had the opposite reaction.

Rogue came with his wire crate, he cried and barked alot the first night I had him and he chewed the bottom of it! He used his paw to grab the bottom of my comforter and he pulled it into his kennel and he ripped it to shreds!

I had a new foster GSD that was HW positive a couple yrs ago and had to be crated or penned a good chunk of the day as a result of the HW. Also had a minor ACL tear but the prolonged crate rest healed it up beautifully...

Anyway, I came home a couple days after getting him (he was in a 42" wire crate) and he had completely destroyed the plastic pan on the bottom - I mean destroyed!! - pulled the curtains hanging on the window near his cage though, shredded them (and broke the curtain rod in the process by pulling it down), shredded the blanket that was underneath his cage, and then done some damage to the carpet by scratching at it.

I immediately went to petsmart and bought the biggest sturdiest petmate kennel they had, luckily the nearly $200 cage was on clearance for $75...and he never had a problem after that.

 

[KZoppa]

I had a new foster GSD that was HW positive a couple yrs ago and had to be crated or penned a good chunk of the day as a result of the HW. Also had a minor ACL tear but the prolonged crate rest healed it up beautifully...

Anyway, I came home a couple days after getting him (he was in a 42" wire crate) and he had completely destroyed the plastic pan on the bottom - I mean destroyed!! - pulled the curtains hanging on the window near his cage though, shredded them (and broke the curtain rod in the process by pulling it down), shredded the blanket that was underneath his cage, and then done some damage to the carpet by scratching at it.

I immediately went to petsmart and bought the biggest sturdiest petmate kennel they had, luckily the nearly $200 cage was on clearance for $75...and he never had a problem after that.

wow!!! thats almost what Shelby used to do only she has seperation anxiety and is a crate escape artist. fixed that! but still!!! wow. lots damage.

 

[olskool53]

I personally like the plastic Vari Kennel crates. I've seen serious injuries (not from my dog's) that can happen from a wire crate.

I read somewhere that Hundreds of dogs die each year in Wire crates. Our Breeder and trainer highly recommend plastic crates.

 

[kelso]

We used wire with the divider as he grew and this worked very well. No need to buy more than one crate. He was crate trained so quickly, no big upsets.

I think that anything can be dangerous (sounds like the plastic crate could be dangerous from what she described Nikon doing..)

Very important to make sure they are stable, safe and used to the crate before you leave them in it if that is what one is planning on doing, but starting off with using it when you are home and sleeping I would think is generally safe.

 

[doggiedad]

a plastic crate is to enclosed. a wire crate
offers more freedom. they can see more
with the wire crate.

 

[Liesje]

The wire crate has been working out well. However in the van I use the plastic kennel because when the vehicle is moving I think it's very important to have the safest crate. Not that the plastic is always safer (my other dogs ride in wire kennels) but my wire kennels in the van are too big for a 10lb puppy. If something happened I don't want so much room that the puppy can be tossed around really hard. The plastic one is the correct size for him right now. At night he's done much better in the larger wire crate. He wakes me up when he has to go outside.

I agree with Steph that both types have pros and cons, and any can be dangerous depending on the dogs' behavior. Luckily once past 4 months or so, all my dogs have been well crate trained to be in either type, anywhere. If I crate adults in the house I use 42" wire crates, mostly because they are cheaper and it gets so hot in the summer (no AC) I want them to have more ventilation. But in the van, I always use a size-appropriate crate so they have 36" wire crates. Again, wire because of ventilation and they fit together so I can use more. The plastic kennels have weird shapes and I can't fit them side by side.

 

[Zisso]

I use wire crates in the house but I cover them for a den like feeling. Both dogs love it.
I use plastic crates for traveling as they are in the bed of the truck with a canopy on it. So for two dogs, I have 4 crates. :thinking: