Nugget is 13 weeks now and needs a new crate (his current one is 24"). The website recommends 36" - will this last him to adulthood? What size crates do you all use? Thanks
For adults Labs, I buy the biggest crate that I have room for - there is no advantage in a smaller crate for an adult dog. Since I have plenty of space in an unused room off the kitchen, Charlie uses a 52" Great Dane crate!
I did have the 36" crate for Juno initially when moving from the 24" but went for the 42" crate as the choice into adulthood as it gave plenty of room to stand, sit and stretch out.
I have a 36" cage and it's plenty big enough for Lucan who's a fairly dinky Lab, saying that it's also been used for Freddie my son's Lab who's a lot bigger and he slept in it ok too. To be honest it's very rarely used now as they're all well past the destructive stage and prefer their beds in the kitchen.
I've a 36 inch crate for my car but he sleeps in the 42 inch at night now with no divider. He likes to sleep on his side spread out. Not sure he could do that in 36 inch one. Get the larger size and use divider for proper sizing.
Oban is 23 inches at his withers and his crate is 36". I wish it was bigger. The floor heats up just from his body heat and he'd like to move to a cool spot but there isn't one. He's stuck in his own heat. Mind you, we never did use the crate much, put in a pen with the crate door open.
Charlie doesn't use his crate at all, apart from to snooze in it with the door open when we are out. But if you are going to buy a crate and keep it for use for an adult dog, it does comes in handy - if you have workmen in the house etc, if there is chemicals used in the house for whatever reason, if your dog is ill, needs surgery......a dog needing to be in a crate after surgery is a really good reason for buying a big crate. Smaller ones aren't be big enough for a cone. The crates I have fold up - I have kept all the puppy crates and have two very large size crates (the puppy crates and one large stored flat).
We don't use our crates anymore, either, unless we go somewhere the dogs need to be crated at night. I bought the largest one I could find and both adult dogs fit in it comfortably for nights, although I wouldn't want to keep them in there during the day now they're fully grown. You shouldn't need a divider anymore, I wouldn't have thought. When we had just Willow, I used a divider in the crate, but as soon as she grew out of that bit, I just removed the divider completely. She was quite happy to see the whole crate as her "den" at that point, so didn't use it as a toilet at night time. I can't remember how old she was when I did that, but probably around 10 or 11 weeks.
I didn't move Juno to a larger crate, from the 24", until she was 4+ months old. I didn't use a divider at all as there was no risk of toileting in the crate and gave her plenty of freedom to sleep wherever and however she wished
