[wvasko]

These are some great points. I was thinking about just the same thing as Manman suggested -- letting the dog choose. I wonder if there's any way I can take the puppy with me to see if there are any crates she prefers. I'll have to call around to check if pet stores even have floor models.

Thanks to everyone for your answers.

Plastic crates are more cave/den oriented. I would hope that you don't leave children make decisions on what to eat etc. It's up to you to get proper crate. One of the universities put 10 crates in a mall 5 plastic, 5 wire and a pup in each crate. The pups in the plastic crates did much better as the people staring down at the wire crated puppies caused some problems.