I crate trained my Dobie from the first day I brought him home. He has never seen it as a punishment, and I found that it helped to make him feel secure in a new environment without his litter mates. I had to stop putting soft blankets in with him when he was about 4 months old because he would shred them, but by the time he was a year old he had grown out of the destructive stage. He is 8 now and I stopped crating him when he was 4. I gotta say, he's the most well-behaved dog I've ever owned.
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