To have blanket or not?
 

Hi everyone,

I would like to get some opinions about blankets in the crate for puppies. My pup usually sleeps with a blanket, but he LOVES to pull out the cotton from the blanket, so we took it away from him http://www.pitbull-chat.com/images/smilies/nono.gif. However this evening I noticed that he was having a hard time sleeping without his blanket and I must admit, he looked so pitiful laying there without it http://www.pitbull-chat.com/images/smilies/sad.gif.

I just wanted to know if he'll ever stop at one point or should we just NOT give him a blanket at all? It does get cold in our house and I don't want him to be cold at night, so if I have to give it to him to prevent coldness, what should I do to help prevent him from pulling out the cottons?

Any opinions or advise is appreciated. http://www.pitbull-chat.com/images/s...ankUsmiley.gif

Give him a nice old woolen blanket.

no blankets for me. i put cedar chips/shavings in the crate for bedding. it makes them smell good and they dont end up ripping the blanket up if i was to put one in there. ive heard of dogs eating there bedding up and dying on it while the owners were away before. if they eat the cedar chips which im sure occasionally they will nibble on a few of them from time to time it will be digestible. its a bit of a mess and will be if your crate is one of those open metal crates, but if its a plastic closed in one it will be better to use. either one, but im all for the cedar shavings for bedding

Thanks everyone,

his crate is the metal wire one. I will try covering the crate to keep his body heat in as Teal mentioned and I will also get the woolen blanket as dogeatdog mentioned.

@MisterbonzElirush - Thanks for that info, I would like to try it because I love the idea of him smelling good but because his crate is the wire kind I don't think I can handle the mess lol.

Thanks again everyone for the ideas and opinions, it is appreciated.

yeah it would be a mess. you could always wrap something like a wood barrier a foot high arround the crate, but that would be a problem if you are putting the crate away after each use. a blanket will be good but id remove it once it gets closer to a year. a partner of mine just had a dog eat its whole bedding up and died while he was at work. it does happen just be aware of that. how old are the puppies? if they are new born a blanket would be good and im saying that only because its summer right now, but if it was colder and around fall to winter time id tell you to use a heat lamp over the crate.


if you have a dog house out side and you actually make the dog use it, cedar chips are awesome to put in there dog house for the summer months.

IMO, dogs don't NEED something soft to lay on. Sure it's nice, but some dogs like to tear it apart and ingesting blanket fibers can cause an intestinal obstruction if they can't pass in the dog's system. I'd rather have my dog on the floor than worry about that. That said, my dog doesn't chew his blankets so he has a nice big fluffy stuffed comforter in his crate.. Again, it's because he doesn't chew it though.

Lola has a folded fleece blanket in the bottom of her crate. She's really good about not chewing it because the only time she's really crated is an night. She's usually so exhausted that she sleeps all night and doesn't have a chance to chew though, lol.

I use blankets from the thrift store for the dogs. At just a couple $$ I don't mind if they destroy them.
Either that, or I wait for polar fleece to go on sale at the fabric store and get a few yards at a great price.
OR, I get left over skeins of yard and knit mix-matched blankets. The dogs don't care what they look like.

We put older towels in the bottom of Ares crate. He does like to destroy things still so no blankets for him. My older 3 have blankets to lay on.

As long as the dog isn't a chewer I like to give a blanket...chewing= no blankies.