Petmate Medium Wire Training Kennel Review

I've used Petmate Wire Training Kennels for about three years now.  I fostered for a local dog rescue for two years and then decided to start an animal rescue of my own about a year ago.  I've cared for well over 100 dogs and puppies and have relied on these dog crates to help me confine and housetrain them.

We have a couple of medium-sized crates that we use for both small to medium dogs and groups of puppies.  They are made of plastic-coated wire and have a strong plastic tray at the bottom.  The kennel door swings easily and has two latches that slip into place without any of the annoying jiggling that I've had to do with no-name crates.

It's pretty easy to clean out the bottom pan of the Petmate Wire Training Kennel.  You can just slide it out to you rather than trying to crawl into the crate to scrub it out.  If you have a poopy puppy, the mess tends to get smashed into the wire along the sides of the kennel.  The sides don't slide out so it is more of a challenge to really clean them well.  As long as there's no snow on the ground or the temperature isn't near freezing, I usually just drag the soiled crate outside and blast it with the jet nozzle of the hose.

Because we have so many puppies and dogs coming through here from shelters and such, we always sanitize the crates with a bleach/water solution between new intakes/litters.  These crates have held up extremely well even after dozens of bleach solution soakings. 

We've had many different types of crates donated to us over the years, but the Petmate Wire Training Kennels are the absolute best that we've used.  I don't drag the no-name ones up from the basement unless we absolutely need the extra crate space.