I know a great majority of you out there are strong believers in crate training, and I certainly don't knock it, but I wasn't sure if you really understood the true purpose of a crate. So, I thought I would share with you how Brodie uses his crate.

Now, Kadi has had her wire crate in her x-pen right from the start and she used to sleep in it religiously. We never shut her up in it, because her pen is in the basement and that gave her plenty of freedom, but kept her out of trouble. Now that she's a big girl and has earned more freedom, she sleeps with my son every night in his bed, but her pen and crate are still there when we need them. Brodie, on the other hand, is a different story. Since he invited himself to live with us, he has slept in our bedroom, at first under our bed, then on an old comforter that I dug out and put next to my side of the bed, then he graduated to sleeping on the bed between my husband and I. (This graduation process took all of about two weeks, before he had us fully trained. Hubs isn't as easily trained as I am, having not grown up with dogs.) Anyway, I got the bright idea that Brodie needed his own crate so he would have his own 'space' to escape from Kadi when she got a little too rambunctious for him. So, I got one of those fancy jobs that has the wooden frame around the wire crate to be used as an end table. We set it up next to my side of the bed and I put his comforter in it so he would understand it was his place. He was a little hesitant to go in, but after a few days, I noticed he would go in there occasionally for naps. Then he discovered the true use of a crate. You see, when it comes to toys, our dogs are polar opposites. Kadi shreds and destroys anything we give her, Brodie takes extreme care of even the smallest item. He learned the hard way that he has to keep his toys away from Kadi if he doesn't want the to be destroyed. So every night at bedtime now, he takes his stuffed toys and puts them in the crate where they are safe and Kadi can't get them. Then first thing in the morning, he gets his toys OUT of the crate and puts them up on our bed because it's too high for her to jump on (or at least she thinks it is) so they are safely out of her reach.

So now you know that crates are really not dog beds or confinement areas, they are very safe and expensive toy boxes! Another lesson learned from corgis!