I do a lot of things that raise eyebrows here in Finland: Smile at strangers. Speak above a whisper. Laugh freely. I sometimes take the “Train Arriving” announcement as a personal challenge, bolting down the escalator and into the Metro just as the doors slide shut. This feels natural to me but looks absurd to the Finns.
I try to make light of that too. It’s like the saying goes: You can take the girl out of New York, but you can’t take the New York out of the girl. But, speaking from experience, that’s not something you should say out loud in a crowded train in Helsinki. It only raises more eyebrows. No one wants to be the weirdest person on the subway.
Most of the Finnish people who know me turn a blind eye to my flaws, pretending not to notice when I wear shoes indoors or pay strangers small amounts of cash to perform basic household tasks. By and large, they don’t give me a hard time about it. If I want to spend good money to have someone else do my laundry, that’s my business. Or at least it was. That all changed when I got a dog.
I learned the hard way that everyone has their limit for cultural differences and for Finnish people that point is when you put a three-month old puppy in a dog crate.
“You keep your dog in a cage?” a friend asked when she came to meet Bravo for the first time, her voice rising ever so slightly. Valterri, a true Finn, picked up on this hysteria, as only a compatriot could.
“He really doesn’t mind the cage,” he interjected.
“It’s not a cage,” I reminded him.
“Oh, right. Cupboard,” he corrected before turning back to his friend. “He really doesn’t mind the cupboard.”
For the record, the dog crate in question is quite large—big enough to accommodate me in a pinch. Also, he really doesn’t mind being in there. Oh and, just to be perfectly clear, it’s not a cupboard. It’s a cage. I know that.
I might have fallen for the crate marketing, but I recognize a cage when I see it, just like the Finns do. In fact, there’s no truer test of branding than to hear a person for whom English is a second language call an object what it is without hesitation or apology.
On the other hand, I am unapologetic about keeping my dog in a cage-crate in the first place. I’ve read half a dozen books and watched a slew of videos and the dog community agrees: the fastest, most comfortable way to housetrain a puppy is to put them in a crate. Our house can attest to that! Bravo has never, and I mean never, shit on the floor, not even at 7 weeks.
But here’s the catch: all those experts in the books and the videos just so happen to be American. And while Finnish people can certainly read in English and watch YouTube just as well as I can, it seems that they are taking their dog advice from different sources—Tuire Kaimo, to be specific.
Tuire is the leading voice on the subject of dog rearing here and apparently he is not a big proponent of cage-crates. From what I gather, he recommends “areas.” This is what every Finnish person tells me when I ask them where they keep their dog if not in a crate.
The puppy stays in his “area” when they are at work.
The puppy sleeps in his “area.”
The puppy disrupts conference calls from his “area.”
When pressed, these dog owners describe their so-called area as a crate-cage without a lid. A few follow up questions will reveal that yes, the dog often manages to escape the pen and then occasionally eats an entire carpet.
I accept this explanation about the “area” much the same way that Finnish people accept when I say that the standard greeting between two American women is to shout “YOU LOOK GREAT” in unison—which is to say, I allow them to think that this is perfectly normal when, in fact, it is obviously not.
To be clear, it’s not that I really care about dogs having an “area” so much as I wonder what’s so off-putting about my dog’s area. Is it really just the lid? Is that all that it takes to turn a pen into a cage? Is it really so bad that I make my dog sleep in a crate at night so that he does not pee on the couch, or worse yet, eat it? Is it really so inhumane to make my dog nap in an area that is larger than what I, a 5’10” woman is allotted on an airplane?
The crate was my first clue that dog rearing in Finland was different. My second was when I casually mentioned the act of neutering—which was a word that Finnish people were completely unfamiliar with. That should have been enough to shut me up, but it was not. Instead, I rattled off a long list of euphemisms before finally landing on a term they understood in this context: castration.
As an American, it never occurred to me not to castrate my dog. Horrific as it sounds, I’ve been socialized to consider this a part of responsible pet ownership. It’s a thing to do for the health of the dog and to stave off behavioral issues—not to mention preventing a litter of puppies from showing up on your doorstep.
In Finland, this is not the case. Not only is neutering not the norm, it’s actively discouraged. I’ve been told by several fellow dog owners that if I plan to go through with it, then I will need to find a vet who’s willing to do the procedure. Many, I’ve been warned, won’t do so unless it’s to treat an impending health issue.
Normal or not, I still plan to do it. My dog is going to be 70 pounds of pure muscle that is bred to run alongside coaches and directly into burning buildings. I’m going to need every advantage I can get to keep him under control. And I’m sorry if I have to “neuter, fix, snip-snip”, but that’s the way it has to be. Like I tell Bravo every day: I’m in charge.
I should also say that the dog-based cultural differences go both ways. People in America have their own set of questions for me, the most notable being: Why did you want a purebred dog?
And the short answer is that I didn’t. My husband did. He pushed for the Dalmatian, not me. I wanted a dog, but he was the one who had specifications about looks. Don’t get me wrong I was happy to oblige in getting a dog that so perfectly matched my wardrobe, but I could have just as soon gone for any big dog.
The longer answer is that there really aren’t many rescue dogs in Finland—especially now in the COVID era. By and large, when people take pets here, they don’t give them up. If you want to adopt a dog, that usually means shipping one in from Romania or Russia. I am a lover of all living things, but the idea of taking a full-grown dog home before meeting him just seems like too much of a commitment. Besides—that is quite a carbon pawprint, shipping a dog via truck IN A LIDDED CAGE CRATE all the way from Romania.
Finally, the bonus answer is that dog breeders are business owners. And now more than ever, I support local businesses.
In the end, it’s all a matter of personal choice: What kind of dog you want. Where you let him sleep. If you’re going to stuff him into an elf costume in three weeks. There’s nothing wrong with asking questions or having conversations about differences, but like all things, it’s important to do so from a place of honest curiosity as opposed to judgment. For me, the former will get answers. Try the latter and I’ll tell you to get back in your area.
Great piece! So much fun watching Bravo grow up!
thank you! he’s a pretty cute (not so) little guy.
You mean you don’t want your dog humping every thing in sight? I agree. Our cat has a bedroom where she goes at night and the door gets shut and people think we’re insane.
We close our bedroom door to the cats and put a shock mat in front of it. People really think we’re insane and inhumane. I had a carpet-at-the-door picking cat so hence the shock mat. The mat hasn’t had batteries in it over well over 6 years. Yet, no one dares step on it, not even hubby or I.
i get it. i really do. in theory, i hate the idea of a shock mat, or a bark collar or a choke collar… but i also get that you have to train an animal to behave. there’s a difference between discipline and cruelty. you can put THAT on a door mat.
ha. no! i don’t. he already tries to assert his dominance over a stuffed parrot and occasionally an armchair and i am just not having it! Sorry. you neuter dogs. that’s how i was raised. i’m going to need some actual facts to change my mind. like if the vet said, “if i do this, your dog will lack the confidence to defend himself against the doberman at the dog park” OK. FINE. I don’t want that! but until then, i’m pro snip.
My father had a favorite phrase for Some People: “often wrong, never uncertain.” I think “get back in your area” will also serve. Thanks for ALWAYS making me smile.
oh i love that. so perfect. keep an eye out because I will most certainly be using that in a future post. :)
My dog adores his crate/cage/area. If he gets tired of us or wants to be alone, you can always find him in his crate. We don’t shut the door anymore, but that is his comfort spot.
so i will admit that bravo is not at this point yet. he would prefer to nap on us, not in the crate. but he doesn’t MIND being in there either. i think in time, as he gets older he’ll come to think of the crate as a safe and quiet place. but the thing is… it’s so big that once he’s fully housetrained and can be trusted to stay home without destroying something then i was going to put it away. it takes up a lot of floor space and it does not go with my decor. we’ll have to see. but thank you for confirming what i’ve read and heard from others: dogs are cave dwellers at heart.
as always, this made me giggle. i’m team cage/crate and my shit-less house was proof of the tactic for a good 15 years. now that gus is approaching approx. 107 human years, all bets are off and no cage/crate will save us. he’s so freaking adorable. post all the pics all the time. can’t get enough.
people really underestimate the power of the crate. every time i hear a complaint about how hard housetraining is i’m like… well you have to think about how to control the environment! I mean with a crate, but they don’t get it. Too into the area.