The Crate

It's important to train your dog to think of his crate as a safe, comfortable, pleasant place to be.  That way, you can confine him to it when necessary without him feeling imprisoned.  Fortunately, crate training is made easier because dogs have a denning instint.  It's that instint that leads Newton to loiter under our coffee table or Alison's desks.  Unfortunately, as new dog owners, we did a poor job of making Newton's crate his happy place.  We recently met with some success on this front when we noticed how much Newton loves to curl up on one of our blankets.  This blanket is stuffed with goose down, which may be a strong factor in Newton's affinity for it.  After we folded the blanket and placed it in his crate, Newton suddently began going into the crate on his own, even lounging in there for for long periods.

In the above photo, you can see Newton relaxing in the crate.  The down blanket is the blue one.  The green one is actually a baby blanket we bought soon after we first brought our little puppy home.