crate

I saw two different faces of dog ownership today, and it made me wonder how we can sometimes get it so wrong.
 

I was talking today to the owner of a Jack Russell Terrier puppy. She was bemoaning the fact that her young dog had done heavy damage to one of her doors and doorframes while trying to get to her. She was upstairs at the time, he was shut in downstairs, and he was desperate to join her. I asked what I thought was a reasonable question.

"Do you have a crate?" I inquired.

We were in the middle of a training class, so she misheard me, "A gate?" she questioned.

"No a crate," I replied, but she still looked puzzled. "You know - a cage."

Her face immediately creased into a look of acute disgust, "Oh, I don't want a cage!" she exclaimed, as if she was proclaiming something as self evident as the statement, "Oh I don't want to have my dog thrown into the lion enclosure at the zoo."