The Shark Cage

The boys have been crate-trained from day one. The first night that we brought them home, we set up their crate and left it open for them to explore. Before we knew it, they both crawled in the crate and fell fast asleep. They even slept the entire first night without waking up & crying.

Since that first day, we've gone through four different crates, each one increasing dramatically in size. Both my husband and I work away from home during the day, so unfortunately the boys have to spend a large portion of the day in a crate. I couldn't imagine separating them into two different crates and because of this, I was determined to find the largest crate possible so that they'd have plenty of room to move around throughout the day. This is how we ended up with what we call the shark cage that measures 54"L x 35"W x 45"H. Seriously, I think the crate is big enough to fit four adults sitting down.

The boys really do love their crate (as do many of our friends' kids...they pretend it's a playhouse or jail, both of which seem to keep them occupied for hours). We've found that even when we've left the boys out of their crate for the day, we often come home to find them napping in it anyway. I'd love to let the boys have free reign of the house while we're gone, but unfortunately they're not quite ready for that yet. Cooper (the smuggler) always manages to find something to hoard in his crate or on his bed, no matter how many doors we close and items we think we put out of his reach before we leave home. This habit of his makes it difficult to decide what to do when friends or family watch the boys for us when we're out of town. We can take the crate, but it doesn't have the same fold-down feature that many crates do - you have to totally disassemble this sucker every time you want to move it. It's definitely do-able, but it's like putting a jigsaw puzzle back together every time. Just curious - has anyone found a travel crate in a comparable size? If so, I might be tempted to give you a finder's fee (or, more than likely, one of my dog treat kits or a set of note cards) for passing the information along...