Westie & Crate?
November 22, 2009 by admin
Filed under Care & Training Q&As
The night we got him, my westie would sleep in my german shepherds old cage. Now, I got him another crate, that is for his size. He can stand up turn around and sit and lie down. But I feel really bad because I keep thinking he needs a bigger cage. Right now, he’s not potty trained and thats what I want to do with him. In his new crate, he whines for 10 minutes( second day we got him), but then I think he looks sad. Should I get him a bigger one?:S
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Your westie will adjust just fine….just give him time. He really NEEDS to be in that small a crate until he gets more trustworthy with the whole potty training thing. Give him a couple more weeks and then if there is a way for you to make your other dog’s crate SMALLER (maybe putting in a rubbermaid container that blocks part of it off) then you can gradually give him more and more of the crate to live in. It’s normal for a puppy to whine a bit. Of course they would rather have full freedom to do whatever they want, but you know it IS better and safer for the puppy to be in there and he will be fine.
In the meantime make sure he has a safe and indestructible toy or two to play with in there so he can be occupied and not totally bored.
But just remember…soon he will earn the freedom for the entire bigger crate and maybe some day he will earn the freedom to be crate-free! Hang in there.
If he can stretch out fully when he’s in his crate it should be big enough. I use a medium size dog crate for my Westie, it is slightly bigger than recommended for his size but I don’t like to think that he’s cramped. For bigger cages you can buy dividers so the cage adjusts as your dog grows.