If your dog is an indoor pet, you might be interested in the more decorative type of dog cage, one that blends in with the decor in your house. There are many different types on the market, with some very cute decorative cages for the toy dogs. There are two main types of indoor, decorative dog cages.
Cutesy: The type I have termed ‘cutesy’ are the dog cages that don’t look like one. Instead they look like a giant mushroom, or a castle, or they’re just green and pink and ugly with flowers and fluff and frills all over them. These are not really meant to blend in with your surroundings, but are meant to stand out and be noticed. They are not always that useful, in my opinion, and they are more for looks than anything else. I wouldn’t necessarily recommend you getting something like this, unless you want it for a special occasion or room of the house and it’s not something that you’ll use for your pet all the time.
Decorative: Then there’s the other type of dog cage, the one that blends in so well with the rest of your furniture that it doesn’t even look like a dog cage at first glance. I’ve seen some beautifully made items, that really were quite outstanding. These type of cages are often made of a hard wood, or sometimes bamboo, and it is possible to mix and match them with your existing furniture.
They are a little harder to come by, usually found in pet specialty shops. One popular dog crate fashioned in this way on sale at the moment doubles as a dog crate and bed, or an end table. The little dog just lounges around in its bed while you have your coffee and cookies sitting on top of it. Knowing my dog, I wonder how long the cookies would stay there if I got one for her.Well, she’s a Retriever, so to get a cage that doubled as a table for her would mean I’d get a new dining table I suppose.
I read somewhere that dogs love to lay beside furtniture because it helps them feel more secure. I have noticed that my dog loves to plop down beside me, or beside an empty chair as opposed to sitting in the middle of the room and I can imagine a smaller dog fitting quite nicely inside an end table that doubled as its dog cage. These type of cages though wouldn’t be very useful for the larger breeds of dog.
When it comes down to it, it seems that the best type of cages for the larger breeds of dogs would be the more durable types, either the soft cage or the wire mesh cages seem to be the best for them. Wooden cages are nice, and they do look quite nice inside too but if your dog is a chewer they wouldn’t last very long. So maybe you’ll need to keep your decorative style dog cage for your small breed dogs and invest in something a bit bigger and more durable for the bigger breeds.