"Crate Training" has proved to be a great success and has certainly saved our sanity a bit during the early puppy months.
The crate we bought should take an adult sized collie. It is 36 inches long (I Think !)
Here is a link to our crate listed on Amazon :
Every time I have returned to see her she has been either sleeping or just sitting looking out and is not in any way desperate to get out.
This has meant we can leave her safely and not come home to find she has destroyed the kitchen etc.
The advice is in the early days to just get them used to going in and out of the crate. We have put her dog bed in there and she slept in the crate from the second night we had her home. (In the very early days she needed out to go to the toilet in the middle of the night but eventually she was able to sleep through). In fact she has been such a good sleeper from 10 through to 7.30 that we have been able to leave her sleeping in the kitchen. She choses to sleep either in her crate or in a chair. I know the dog training advises against her sleeping on your furniture but I am afraid I decided to let her onto the chair in the kitchen as the thought of fighting each night over whether she could go in that and when I wasnt in the room anyway seemed a battle I decided not to fight. However I did find out at dog training this week that it may be OK to let her use that chair as long as I have invited her up onto it.
Further tips we used for crate training though were that we didn't make a big fuss when leaving her in the crate and then leaving the house. Also when we returned to the house we made a point of not immediately going to her to make a fuss. We would do a few tasks in the kitchen and then go and let her out.
So I would say it has worked and even though she may eventually be safe to leave loose in the kitchen I think it may well be useful to keep occassionally using the crate as there may well be times when it will come in useful, for example when people are visiting.
