[Dailydrool] Crate Question

[Winn & Faye Mauk]

We love crates for training initially...
Actually, I feel that the puppy feels more secure in a crate, especially 
if there are a lot of people in the house. When we first had Mozart, we crate trained him
and eventually, he made it into our room at night, after he was house broken.
During the day, we left the door open with his toys and a crate pad and a blankie, and he would go in to play with a toy, and end up going to sleep, with the door open.

Our most recent hounds are crate trained. My husband built 3 crates out of wood, and we have them end to end in front of the windows in our front office. We have metal doors, and two little windows on each one. The door is a grill for an outdoor grill. We have the doors hinged and have a slide latch. They are padded on the lids which can open to vacuum, or clean. We have regular crate pans which slide in the bottom. The doors are open, and they can go in and play and rest, or they can sleep on the padded tops, which appears to be a wide window seat. The problem...they love to look outside, and we have a friendly pack of squirrels that cross our front porch to the porch feeder of the house next door...a little old lady lives there and she loves to feed the squirrels. Our hounds love to watch for them, and you would think the front was coming off the house. So, we glazed the lower windows, so now they stand on their hind legs and look out of the top half of the windows.
We have sliding partitions between the crates to isolate the hounds if they are chewing on one of their p-nut butter filled bones or kongs, or big beef bones...they will definitely get routy with one another over those.
If they are just sleeping, we will take the partitions out, because they do like to curl up together. 
When we trained them for night time, they were so cute. (It appears they know when it is the last time for them to go out, they know it is slightly dark,)  We use to say, "Go to bed", and they went straight for the crates, now you do not have to. They get a small cookie and it is lights out...they just come in and go to the crates.
Love our babies...

Happy Drooling and Good Night...It is about that time.
Faye and Winn
Annie, Misty and Pebbles
Mozart and BeauJangles ATB

Live Life... Passionately
Laugh... until your tummy hurts
Love...unconditionally

My passions do not replace my relationship with God,
but are instead, a reflection of it!
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