Bed Or Crate For Newfie Puppy?

[Sophieandgracie]

Hi everyone,

we are getting a baby Newf soon and I am keen to do crate training but the crates that will fit her when she is grown seem HUGE for her now! Should we just get a baby puppy bed now (she will be sleeping in our bedroom) and transfer her to a crate when she is older or start with a crate immediately?

[wuffles]

Giant breed puppies grow VERY quickly

I'd start with a crate, and yes, one for a fully grown newfie will be huge! You can get ones with dividers in them so that you can make them a more appropriate size while they're young.

[Sophieandgracie]

OK dividers seem like a brilliant idea - who sells them? Do they usually come with the crate? Can anyone recommend good brands or good places to buy from?

More questions sorry!

[wuffles]

I bought both my crates on ebay and one came with a divider - they usually say in the listing. I think that vebopet.com.au sells dividers as well

Edited May 3, 2010 by wuffles

[koalathebear]

When we first got Elbie at almost 8 weeks, he was very tiny so we got him a travel-crate like this.

He absolutely loved it and would go in there to sleep, hang out or sulk. You can see how tiny he was in comparison to it here. He grew fast though and even though he loved it, we thought he'd be more comfy in a large crate. We went to Pet Barn and got him a large crate. He seemed to love the additional space at first - see here. Then we noticed that it was actually too large for him and he always hung around at the front anyway. The crate came with a divider so we put the divider in at just under half the crate and he absolutely loves it. When he grows bigger we'll increase the size of the crate. The crate was surprisingly easy to assemble.

We're moving to a new house with more space soon (hopefully) and so we'll be able to use the side door of the crate which means Elbie will be able to enjoy more room without feeling like he's way way way at the back of the crate. Hope that helps.

Elbie did have the option of sitting on a cushion outside but he seems to like retreating into his crate to play and sleep from time to time.

[fiveplusone]

We got our GSP pup a soft crate 3 or 4 days after we got him and it was the best thing we ever did! (I had no idea about crates and certainly didn't use them when we had puppies before many many years ago).

From the first night we used it he has slept soundly all night long and know that he his safe and snug and can't roam the house!

We have just recently bought him a new bigger crate as he is now 6 months and the old crate was getting very small, however the first couple of nights he was in the new crate he was a bit unsettled. I've since solved the problem by putting bigger bedding in it to bulk it up a bit and make it smaller, so I guess he's telling me he actually likes it being a bit on the smaller side, probably makes him feel more secure, so if you can get a crate with divider that would be good.

We were happy to buy the smaller soft crate when he was a pup as it was pretty cheap ($50) so we were happy to concede that he would eventually grow out of it and have to buy a new bigger one (which only cost us $70 anyway), where as if we were paying alot of money up front then I can see that buying a big one and putting dividers in is more cost effective.