The Crate That Outlasted Eleven Years of Guest Dogs

I ran a small licensed in-home dog boarding business out of my converted mudroom for eleven years. The crate that outlasted every guest dog in that time was the MidWest Homes for Pets iCrate, the 42-inch double door model with a door on the side and a door on the top. I bought one before my first booking ever arrived, and it was still the first crate I reached for when I closed the boarding room for good. That is not a small thing. A crate in a boarding house gets used hard, washed hard, and moved hard.

The first guest was a nervous beagle we boarded one Christmas. He spent the first night crying and pawing at the pan, and I spent most of that night wondering if I had made a terrible mistake. The crate held steady. Not one screw loosened. By morning he was curled on the folded blanket, and I learned the first rule of boarding dogs: a calm guest starts with a crate that does not wobble. Everything else, the food, the walks, the toys, builds on that.

Over the years I washed that crate after every single guest. Bleach solution, a stiff brush, the hose, and a long afternoon in the sun. The wire never rusted through, the latches never jammed, and the tray never cracked. I am not gentle with equipment. I have cleaned kennels for a living, and I have seen what a determined dog can do to a flimsy pen in about twenty minutes. This crate took everything those dogs dished out and asked for more.

Juniper, my Australian Shepherd mix, came into my life halfway through those eleven years. She is about forty-eight pounds and she treats every guest dog as a personal project. She would supervise from the doorway of the boarding room, and she hated being shut out of it. The iCrate did not care about her opinion either way. It stood square in the corner when I needed it to, and it got out of the way when I did not. That mattered on mornings when I had four dogs to rotate through the fenced side yard and one older Subaru Outback full of dirty bedding to unload.

I set up the crate in the corner of the mudroom with the side door facing the room. That way I could open the top door for a nervous dog and still keep the side door closed, or open the side door for a friendly dog and not have to reach across the tray. The sides clicked into place, the pan slid in, and the whole thing was ready in under a minute. I have put together plenty of pet gear that took longer to figure out than it did to use.

A crate in a boarding house either earns its spot or it becomes a storage rack for leashes. This one earned its spot every single year.

One summer I boarded a pair of young Lab mixes who decided the crate was a chew toy. Not the toy I gave them. The crate itself. They grabbed the tray edge with their teeth and pulled, and they threw themselves against the door every time the mail truck came down the drive. The frame held. The door held. I had to tighten two screws once, and that was the entire repair over all those years. I have owned dog gear that needed a wrench before the first wash. This was not that.

I also learned that a double door crate is not a luxury when you are dealing with a frightened dog. The side door let me reach a nervous guest without stepping into the line of a scared mouth. The top door let me lower a blanket in from above, which sounds like a small thing until you have a panicked dog in a corner and you are trying to make the space feel safe. When a tall Great Dane mix arrived and could not fit under the top of the crate, I used the side door as a gate across the mudroom. It was not designed for that job, but it worked, and it never bent.

The 42-inch size fit the dogs I actually boarded, which were mostly medium to large dogs in the seventy to ninety pound range. I bought a second iCrate after the first three years, not because the first one wore out, but because I needed a spare for overflow. The first one is still in my detached garage, leaning against the wall, and I still pull it out when a friend's dog needs a safe place to settle for the afternoon. It is eleven years old and it still locks up clean.

I cannot tell you how many guest dogs came through that room over eleven years. I can tell you that every single one of them spent at least one night in that crate, and not one of them ever got out of it. That is the standard I judge a crate by, and it is the reason I would buy the MidWest Homes for Pets iCrate again without hesitating.

What I'd Tell You If We Were Sitting at My Kitchen Table

I would tell you that a crate is the best peace of mind you can put in a boarding room, and that you do not need anything fancy. I would tell you to look for double doors, a solid latch, and a tray that slides out for cleaning, because those three things will save you more frustration than any other feature. I would tell you to buy the MidWest Homes for Pets iCrate and stop second-guessing yourself. Eleven years of guest dogs, one crate, and the only reason I stopped using it is because I stopped boarding. That is the whole review.