They are Ellie Bo from Amazon, they are rectangle shaped - I have added to it. She has a puppy pad at the end of the pen at night and uses it once. During the day we don't have puppy pads anywhere. My reason for having a pen not a crate is because I have a puppy every year (guide dogs) and can't face losing that much sleep taking them to toilet in the night. I do train them to be happy in a crate in case of vets etc but I start that at about 4 months old and use Tatze's crate. She is my pet dog, three years old. She had a crate as a pup (which was when I learned about the disturbed sleep) and she loves her crate. I don't close the door any more unless I'm giving Tatze a bone/chew and want to be sure the pup doesn't pinch it ...
Yep, only the kitchen. It's what Pippa (and other experts I've noticed) recommend until they're at least 12 weeks, but she also recommends keeping puppies off carpets for another month after that and we have carpets so...too much freedom too soon can be bad for toilet training apparently.
I keep mine in the kitchen (we spend 99% of our time there with them). Once they are 'safe' they are allowed in the lounge but only when we are in there. ...
The puppy pen pictured above is one we used for a spell. What's great is that it can be reconfigured depending on your space -- octagon, square, rectangle, or other odd shape. And they come in 8 sections so you can use all or less if you want.
I've never crated before always used a large pen then when older they have a dog safe room as 'their place'. I did the same this time - large pen metre high - however I didn't bank on Milly being a springbok gazelle & she jumped it at about 12wks So they were moved earlier to their safe room - which is the utility however the washing machine etc are behind sliding doors so they can't get to any wires plug sockets etc I was very lucky that they didn't have any accidents but did for the first time try puppy pads but they chewed the first one so I didn't bother & donated the pack of 100 pads.
We crate trained over night, and used our long hallway with a baby gate as a "pen" if we were out more than an hour (from about 10 weeks to 4.5 months) but chose not to use pee pads/newspaper in the hall. We have a large crate, and started with the divider and extended it as she got bigger until we removed the divider around 5 months. I do believe that using the gated hall prolonged potty training, but I wasn't comfortable crating her and knowing she may be forced to go in her bed. Now that she is older (7 months) and able to go a few hours between potty breaks we use the crate when we are out. She is 99% potty trained but will still have the odd accident if we miss her standing by the door, so we will continue to use the crate for a bit longer and then move to free range of a section of the house.
We made a divider in ours from plasticised wire. Willow wasn't a chewer, so it wasn't a problem - other puppies might have needed something a bit sturdier. We kept it in until she outgrew the small space (within a couple of weeks) and then removed it completely, which she was fine with.
I'm not sure where you live - I'm in Canada (Ontario) and crates with dividers are easy to find - Walmart, PetSmart, Pet Valu, Ren's...also we found lots used ones online (kijiji). Ours has two doors so you can configure the crate the way that works best for your space once you go to the full size. There are two sizes that work for labs, large and x large. Depends on how big you think your puppy might get as an adult, if you plan to crate that long. We went with large, as we anticipate Quinn will be about 65lbs max based on her parents. She still has lots of room left now at 45lbs and can stretch out.
Not sure if you use Amazon - I am from US and got my crate on here - double door, folds down to compact/easy to carry for travel & has a divider - used the divider for awhile, but Duncan never had an accident in his crate overnight so we took the divider out and he loves to spread out in his crate and I thought he would never love his crate, but now he puts himself to sleep in there and loves to spread out in it and get a good snooze in! https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000QFT1RC/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o02_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 all the pet stores around me had them too, but they were much more expensive, so we bought ours off Amazon and it has been great! it has 2 locks on the front door so he cannot get it open... he could get the smaller crate door open on a travel crate my friend wasn't using anymore that only had 1 sort of locking device and he figured it out! smart little guy!
What age do you recommend the puppy pen can be used to before they start to chance they luck and try jumping out of it? At the moment we have a 42" crate which is fine and Enzo doesn't mind too much, would like to get a pen just for more freedom for him, just worry he could hurt himself trying to jump out of it in the future.
It depends on the pup! Twiglet climbed out of hers at 5 months old, but our pups are de-crated at 6 months old anyway so it wasn't a big deal.
That pic made me laugh... A lot @Boogie, looking at you thinking "yep I'm climbing out and probably shouldn't be" hahaha. I didn't even think of them climbing, I thought more taking a leap of faith and going over in one. When you say de crated at 6 months, is that also de pen'd, I think our crate should be fine for Enzo upto 6 months, I was thinking a pen may have lasted longer as that's when the pups are still chewing, only more forceful.
