crate wars

11Mar10

Gracie in the crate after work, without Plan 3.

The first thing that I bought for Gracie was a crate. I work full-time, which means she spends several hours a day alone, and I didn’t trust her enough to give her free reign of my apartment.

Gracie and I went to PetSmart in search of a crate. The crate sizes are broken down by weight. Gracie weighs about 45 pounds, so I found a crate for dogs 40-70 pounds. I threw it up on my shoulder and started walking to the front.

As soon as I finished paying, a helpful worker comes up and says, “That’s not going to be big enough.”

I looked at him puzzled and mumbled something about the weight on the box.

He took the box off my shoulder and stood it up beside the dog. It looked a little shorter than she does.

“See, she won’t be comfortable in there and won’t be able to stand up,” he informed me.

Sounded reasonable, so I let him up-sell me to a larger crate, costing me another $20. I didn’t know any better.

Crate set up was easy and we were ready to rock for the next day of work.

Over the next few days, Gracie learned to make the crate her personal bathroom. She would sometimes go outside, but more often than not she would saunter into the crate and do her business when I wasn’t looking.

In one especially hair-pulling case, Courtney and I had been in the apartment all day, taking Gracie out periodically to use the bathroom. Later in the evening, Courtney and I ran out to the store to get something for dinner. We locked Gracie in the crate, and left.

Not even 20 minutes later, we got back to the apartment. The smell hit us in the face when we walked through the door. Given ample opportunities all day to go outside, she decided that it was better to use the bathroom in the crate in the short time we were gone.

Google, here I come.

I started searching about dogs going to the bathroom in a crate. Everywhere I looked I saw the same thing: dogs should consider the crate their den and they don’t want to soil their den. Gracie obviously didn’t live by this standard.

I finally figured out that usually the problem is that the crate is too large. Sure enough, though the height was about right for her, Gracie could use the bathroom and easily get to the other side of the crate.

Unfortunately, no pet stores in the area sold crate dividers individually and I was not willing to buy a new crate. Buying a divider online was more expensive then I wanted, so in typical macho fashion I decided that I could come up with a homemade solution.

Plan 1: Take a couple of plastic tub lids, drill holes in the corners and string them up in the crate with old shoe strings. (I apologize that I didn’t think far enough in advance to get a picture of this. But ask anyone who saw it, it was pretty interesting.)

It sure looked good. But the first day I put it up, I got a report from Courtney, who happened to stop by to check on the dog, that Gracie had managed to get around it.

Plan 2: Put the actual tubs behind the lids, blocking that area off completely.

Looked even better.

It worked for a couple days, until I came home from work one day to find her standing in the top crate, unable to get out. I tried filling the tubs with old newspapers and magazines, but she eventually broke those down as well.

Over time, she destroyed the plastic tubs, tearing them apart so much that they were barely standing. She’s incredibly destructive when I’m not looking.

But keeping her in one half of the crate where she couldn’t go to the bathroom and get away from it did stop her from soiling the crate.

So finally I scrapped the tubs and moved on.

Plan 3: Use pieces of chicken wire attached with those plastic cable ties that are so hard to pull apart.

This was by far the best plan. When assembled correctly, it seemed nearly impossible to get to the other side of the crate.

For the first few days, it worked beautifully and she stayed on her side of the crate and made no messes. Then, one day I came home and she was on the other side.

Let me note here that there is no advantage for her going to the other side. Both sides of the chicken wire are about the same size and are just as empty. I still don’t understand what was so alluring about the other side of the wire.

I examined the chicken wire to see how she got through. The bottom of the wire was bent up, but it only gave her about three inches of room.

“There’s no way her big butt can make it through that,” I thought. Then I watched her do it. She got that belly on the ground and Army-crawled under the chicken wire like a seasoned escaped convict.

I was stunned. But at this point there was no “Plan 4.” And she wasn’t going to the bathroom in the crate anymore, so if she wanted to fight through chicken wire on a daily basis, I figured let her do it.

I am constantly thinking of ways to reinforce the wire, doubling it up and tying it off differently. I will win the battle of the crate, I don’t care how long it takes.

My girlfriend keeps telling me just to buy the divider online. What’s the fun in that?

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