Dog is a 9 month old "Double doodle" (50% poodle, 25% labrador 25% golden retriever) and is absolutely fine with her crate. She will sleep through the night no problem and just saying "Name – Crate" in a nice tone once and she'll bound in there and lay down.
We're at the point now where she is only having 1 real enforced "crate nap" for 2-3 hours a day during the day as we're trying to teach her to self-settle and sleep outside the crate during the day. She's slowly getting better at this but still sleeps much better in her crate as she's seemingly a very light sleeper and will wake up if I even try to go to the bathroom if she's asleep in the room.
She will never choose to go sleep in her crate on her own though as she likes being with us (doesn't have separation anxiety but she is quite a shy dog in general demeanour)
She never whines and complains about going into the crate so I think she likes it just fine, but as she is fine with it should we ever deviate from this? Or just have her sleep & nap only in her crate forever more if she's fine with it and no good elsewhere?
I've seen some people suggest Putting them in the crate with the door open, but when in the crate she sleeps with a cover over it so this isn't really possible
I really don't want to have to crate her to sleep her whole life if I can avoid it. As I say she seems completely fine with it and 0 whining / sadness using it but it feels odd to have to put them in a cage to sleep their whole life. Is this the norm and I'm just overthinking it?
submitted by /u/Baalegde
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