The biggest difference you can make in your dog's, and family's quality of life is the number of hours you crate, or cage, your dog or whether your dog lives free in your home. Dogs Hate Crates by canine psychology specialists Ray & Emma Lincoln empowers families to live positively with well-behaved dogs and resist pressure from segments of the dog industry to "crate" or cage dogs up to 18-23 hours a day. The book discusses scientific research studies and game-changing facts about how confinement changes pups' mental, physical and emotional development. While many individuals who make their living working with- and writing about-dogs now believe that dogs are "den animals", born to live in small wire cages every night, workday and commute, most dog owners prefer keeping their dogs free in their homes. Dogs Hate Crates has become a resource to help all pet parents raise healthy, well-behaved, crate-free dogs with family-tested tips for housetraining, behavior training and "puppy proofing". And it's also a resource for those dog owners across America that contact the authors after their dogs have been hurt by crating. Since the publication of Dogs Hate Crates, attitudes about crating in the multi-billion dollar pet industry are shifting, and high-level dog behavior experts are connecting excessive crate time with behavior problems like destructiveness, hyperactivity and bathroom accidents and serious disorders like canine fears, separation anxiety, aggression and health problems. Some dog professionals are attracting more customers by not crating. And even national training organizations are acknowledging that crating is not appropriate for excessive hours or for susceptible dogs. Still, critical facts revealed in Dogs Hate Crates are being kept from many concerned dog owners. The book helps owners understand their dogs' psychology; and reveals why 2-4 million puppy mill and pet shop dogs each year will likely to suffer health and behavior problems, and why some overly confined shelter dogs are prone to similar issues. The book offers helpful solutions for owners and it offers hope- quotes from well-loved authors on how dogs can assist humans and better our future. While Dogs Hate Crates is meant to inspire further investigation by journalists, scientists and veterinarians, it is NOT an "animal rights" volume. The authors, independent and curious dog parents and former members of APDT, support no particular ideology. As home dog trainers, they witnessed devastating effects of extreme and excessive crating and their concern sparked years of research into the crate-training trend on the national scale. The Lincolns assert there's hope for all dogs- including puppy mill survivors. And they share heartfelt stories of dogs' lives transformed. They also share eye-opening and money-saving housetraining and behavior secrets not found in other books. Pet parents don't want harsh or hurtful dog training methods- they want happy well-behaved dogs living like family members. And the definition of positive training is training without crates.