WRITINGS: Cages for Man's Best Friends?

 

  There's a new phenomenon in the United States called Crate Training. As a long time animal trainer, I can assure you nothing can be learned in confinement. The very words crate training are in opposition to each other. When you go to a pet super store they automatically tell you you need a crate for your beloved new friend. This is the most embraced lie in so called dog trainers and the general public ever put out there. I'll bet when you first put your puppy in the crate and he screamed in horror pleading and begging to get out your instinct told you this was wrong, didn't it? Did you find your puppy covered in urine and feces? They told you you needed this for house breaking, didn't they? And you said to yourself theses are professionals they know what their doing. Well it's a perpetuated lie. Let's get to the facts about crates.

Crates were originally used for transportation purposes especially for those animals in the show circuit. They where never intended for home use of any kind. One day a U.S. marketer devised a way to sell more crates... Let's tell everyone this is the solution to all their puppy problems! We will attach the word "training" to crates. We will have our personally trained in house dog trainers teach people to use this new concept "crate training". A quick easy fix! sell! sell! sell! To make matters worse in house trainers leave the pet super store, go out on their own and continue to in all innocence perpetuate the lie. It is so pervasive it seems everyone in the U.S. has adopted these flawed concepts from veterinarians to breeders to the child next-door!

Ok let's get to some puppy facts... Puppy's can not hold their bowels any more than a new born baby, they can only begin to around 6 months. A crate is just solitary confinement, it causes all types of long standing behavioral problems from separation anxiety to pica. These types of behavioral problems were never or rarely heard of before so called crate training. All highly developed creatures have an early window of opportunity to learn, if that window is not taken full advantage of it will close and there will be no going back. Every minute spent in confinement robs him of that opportunity. Remember an hour in his life is like a day in ours. Crate confinement also exasperates hip dysplasia, it's wrong at so many levels.

Here's something that Steven R. Lindsay a world renowned animal behaviorist and author has to say about crating: "Many advocates of long-term crate confinement claim that dogs are phylogenetically preadapted to live in a crate. These conclusions are based on various fallacious assumptions derived from inappropriate comparisons with the use of dens by wild canids and feral dogs. In reality, a crate has far more in common with a trap (or grave) than it does with a den [emphasis mine]. Further, a den actually has far more in common with a home, the natural environment of a dog, providing access to communal indoor and outdoor living spaces via a two-way door. An obvious distinction between a den and a crate is physical entrapment, isolation, and inescapability. While the den provides the mother with the seclusion and security that she needs to deliver and care for her young, it does not restrict her freedom of movement, as the crate does. Instead of providing a safe environ for her young, the crate serves the express purpose of separating the dog from social attachment objects. Further, instead of promoting comfort and safety, the inescapable exclusion imposed by crate confinement appears to confer an increased vulnerability for disruptive emotional arousal and insecure place attachments. Most puppies and dogs show a high degree of aversive arousal when first exposed to crate confinement, which is consistent with the foregoing comparison. After learning that the crate is inescapable, however, dogs appear to treat the crate in a paradoxical manner analogous to persons affected by the Stockholm syndrome; that is, they appear to form strong attachments with the crate, which becomes the place they identify as home" [emphasis mine].

Well, there you have it! This is what the pet super stores don't want you to know. If the truth got out about crates sales would plummet. A lot of so called dog trainers wouldn't be needed as much and wouldn't get very many calls. Just remember dogs are extremely intelligent and willing. They learn very quick if given the right opportunity. So next time follow your instinct and say no to that crate and ask for an alternative solution. There are kinder and more beneficial ways to raise your pup. Let's stop perpetuating the lie!

Please send this to everyone. It will save all those innocent puppies from unintended abuse and their owners from future frustrations.

Written by: Annette  

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