Hat tip to Adam Carolla for coming up with the term as it applies in this context.
Crate Training is where you train a dog to willingly enter a cage on command and stay there. The animal behaviorists say that the dog feels safe in the crate since it simulates the enclosed or underground den when they lived in the wild. The reason behind crate training is the human doesn’t trust the dog to not take a dump in the house. The dog craps in the house because the humans are neglectful and he isn’t taken out enough to do his necessary business.
Looking at the whole thing, we have a pet who isn’t trusted. The pet is then conditioned to consider the crate to be a safe space and to enter it on command. A toy or two is kept in the crate/safe space to keep the pet entertained while in there. The owner then lets the dog out to “do his business” every now-and-then, but on the owner’s schedule. Otherwise, the dog is ignored while in the crate.
My point? You, my mask wearing Liberal reader, have been trained to consider any space outside your house as dangerous (and by implication your house/crate is a safe space). You are trained to go there and stay on command. You get to play with your Internet, your GrubHub and Amazon while in your crate.
And you actually have it better than your crated pet. You have a bathroom in your crate, they don’t.