Soft Kennels and Puppies

Here is a story that I hope will make you laugh but also contains proof of why puppies and soft kennels are not a good match.  If you are unfamiliar with a soft kennel click here to see a photo.

This particular incident occurred about 6 years ago when Louie, my German Shorthaired Pointer (pictured above) was about 6 months old.  At the time, Tracey and I had not yet moved to Austin to train dogs and we were not living together but we would often spend time at each others homes with our dogs.  It was due to the frequent back and forth between each of our homes that I decided to get a soft kennel that would collapse and allow for easy travel.  Sounds like a good plan, right?

Tracey and I had just gotten back from the park with the dogs and were getting ready to have dinner.  We put Louie in the soft kennel for the first time and he was adjusting just fine.  A few minutes later, we heard a lot of rustling around and noticed that Louie had taught himself to push up against the sides of the kennel with his front paws and was able to tip the kennel over.  When he would do this repeatedly, he was able to actually travel from one end of the room to the other all while staying inside the soft kennel.  We thought this was the funniest thing and started having Louie travel in the kennel after a ball that we were rolling along the ground for him.  We laughed and laughed, we thought it was the funniest thing.

A few hours later we had let all of the dogs out for one more potty break and we went to bed.  Around two or three o’clock in the morning I woke up to the sound of a ball being squeaked.  I thought this was odd because we didn’t leave any toys in any of the kennels.  As I approached the living room I was instantly hit by the unpleasant smell of dog poop.  As I turned on the light, I will never forget what I saw.

There was a trail of diarrhea from the spot where we had set up Louie’s kennel to the complete other side of the room where the kennel was now located.  It was quickly apparent that Louie had deficated in his kennel and then traveled inside the kennel (end over end) to the other side of the room where he was now chewing on a ball (located on the outside of the kennel) through the soft walls of the kennel.  The soft walls of the kennel not only allowed Louie to chew on his ball while remaining in the kennel but had also allowed large amounts of diarrhea to leak out of the kennel as it was traveling from one side of the room to the other.

It was so gross, Louie was covered in poop, Tracey’s living room was a complete mess, the kennel had poop in every corner and I wanted to just get in my car and drive all night; it didn’t matter where, I just wanted out of that room.  Realizing that I couldn’t run away from this one, I put Louie outside and started to clean up the mess.  I started by throwing the kennel in the bath tub and got out the carpet cleaner.  Although it was gross, I was making good progress on the carpet when Tracey had woke up and came out to see what was going on.  She was a good sport about it and even laughed at me as I was cleaning it up, I think she said something along the lines of her being so glad that it wasn’t her that was responsible for cleaning up the mess.

I finished up with the carpet and turned to the kennel.  Tracey lived in a condo and didn’t have a garden hose that I could use to wash off the soft kennel outside, so my plan was to use the shower head to wash it out while it was in the tub.  I started to wash out the kennel and the smell was overwhelming, so overwhelming that I started to not feel well.  That feeling quickly lead to an upset stomach and I ended up throwing up on top of the poop covered kennel.  Tracey’s amusement quickly turned to disgust as now she was left with the task of cleaning up poop and puke from the soft kennel (it’s a wonder we’re still together).  A few minutes into it, she had the brilliant idea to just scrap the kennel instead of going through the hassel of trying to remove poop and vomit.  I took it out to the dumpster and we have never used a soft kennel again.

Although this is probably the worst of the worst, simpler events like potty accidents, chewing, and escape attempts are reasons why soft kennels may not the best match for a puppy (or any dog with diarrhea).  Instead, determine which type of crate is best for your dog or puppy and never teach them how to walk inside of their kennel ;).

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