Had We Only Used a Dog Crate

I grew up with dogs my whole life. One of the best dogs we ever had when I was growing up was Bud. Bud was a Chocolate Lab and was to be our next great bird dog. He was one of the smartest dogs I had ever seen. It was towards the end of my high school years, and I was soon to be moving off to start my own life. My parents seemed to baby this dog more than others we had while growing up, maybe because their kids were leaving. I don't know, but he has spoiled. Bud never had to go to his dog crate or his dog kennel. In fact, I don't remember if he ever had one. Anyway, training Bud was an experience. Despite his intelligence, he was rebellious. He would roam the neighborhood freely and even chewed up one of his training videos. Of all the videos we had, that was the one he decided to chew. He was like a bad teenager. We got through all of this, and he ended up being one of the best dogs and definitely the most memorable dog of my youth. He was fabulous, but we could have eliminated some of the frustrating experiences had we only used a dog crate or dog kennel from the beginning. One of the saddest days of my life was finding out we had lost Bud to cancer. This one's for you Bud.