u/rainypeachalpaca

Hi everyone, just got home with my 11 week old chinese crested puppy yesterday and I've already run into bit of an issue with the crate.

The breed is already small, but she is the smallest from the litter. She is tiny 🥹 And after we came home I quickly realized I totally overshot it with the crate size - she could fit there like 10 times, 5 times when lying down comfortably. And my biggest fear is that she will caught her leg I'm between the bars when excited or panicking and seriously hurt herself.

Of course, now she is only staying in the crate under close supervision and when calm (mostly just to sleep) and so far she's been good! Slept the whole night in it, only woke me around 1 am and 6 am with whines, waited for me to take her outside, she peed (yay!) and now she's asleep again. But I really want to prevent any possible issue.

I already quickly ordered quite smaller metal crate last night, but I'm still afraid of the metal bars and her tiny legs. Plastic crate might be an option, less space to hurt herself, but I'm afraid the crate might nor be great for the upcoming summer - it really doesn't get super hot here but we do not have AC, so it gets warm.

I'm considering one of those foldable textile crates, one that is not completely easily foldable and has a sort of a metal wires inside so they're more stable (hope that description makes sense, English is not my first language). I know they're usually not recommend, but she is so light and small I'm thinking it might just work! Her teeth are tiny as well and right now she still needs her kibble softened by water, so I'm honestly not sure if she would manage to bite her way outside if it came to it.

Do you have any advice please?

EDIT: I forgot to add I need to resolve this especially for when I'm going back to work next week - I'll only be out for 4 hours at a time and only a few days a week at the beginning + I will have a puppy camera to supervise but I still want to be 100% sure my puppy will not hurt herself while I'm gone.