DONORO Pop-Up Dog Crate: An Honest Review of the Wire Frame Design

I bought the DONORO pop up crate in the second week of May with no particular plan for it. That is the honest version, and there is no better place to start a review than the part where I admit I did not need the thing. Scout, my six year old terrier mix, already rides clipped into a harness on a back seat hammock in my Outback. Nothing about that was going to change. What I wanted was someplace to set her down at a parked stop that was not the gravel shoulder of a truck stop parking lot.

Six months later I have used the DONORO crate at the Tomah hand off on the second Saturday of every month, at two rest stops along I-94, and in my own driveway more times than I can count. I have also read the product page closely enough to notice that the title and the bullet points are not saying the same thing. The short version is this. It is a good shade and a poor fence. If you buy it expecting a fence you will be disappointed, and that will not be the crate's fault.

What the Title Says and What the Bullet Points Admit

'Dog Kennels and Crates for Medium Dogs' is in the title. So is 'Escape Proof.' Then you scroll to the bullet points and find the sentence that starts with ATTENTION and tells you it just fits small dogs, and that this size is really meant for one or two cats. Those two statements do not live comfortably together on the same page. My read after six months is that the bullet point is telling the truth and the title is doing advertising.

The measurements are 28 inches long, 18 inches wide and 22 inches tall, and the listing puts the weight at 3.25 pounds with the weight field saying 3.3. Scout is 18 pounds and long in the leg for her weight, being a terrier mix. She fits with room to turn around and she can stand without her head touching the top. A 30 pound dog would be crowded in there. A 45 pound dog would be a bad idea. A 60 pound dog is not getting through the door.

So when the listing says medium, it means the low end of medium at best, and for a tall dog or a long backed dog you should put a tape measure on your animal and compare it to 28 by 18 by 22 before you order. I did not measure. I got lucky, because I have a small dog and I already knew how she was built.

One more field worth reading closely. The included components line says pad, and the pet type field lists cat, dog, reptile and small animal, with rabbit named as the target species. That is a catch-all for the search engine, not a recommendation. What it does tell you is that this is a small enclosure with mesh sides and a zipper, and the people selling it know perfectly well it suits a cat or a small animal as readily as a small dog.

How I've Actually Used It

The job I bought it for is narrow and it has stayed narrow. On transport day I leave Eau Claire around seven in the morning, drive about ninety miles down I-94, and hand a dog off to the next driver in the lot of a truck stop in Tomah. I am parked for fifteen or twenty minutes at each end of that. The hatch goes up, the crate comes out folded, and I open it in the cargo area behind the back seat.

Scout goes in it while I sign paperwork and pass a leash to the next driver. She is six and calm and would rather sit in the shade than sniff a parking lot, so for her it is fine. A small transport dog has gone in it twice, both times a dog under 22 pounds, already tired and already settled, and both times with me standing right there with a hand on the frame. I would not put a strange dog in it and walk away. I would not put a nervous dog in it at all.

It has never been in the back seat with Scout. It has never gone down the road with a dog inside it, and I want to be direct about that, because the word kennel makes people picture something they can strap down. This is not that. In my car it is a piece of equipment that lives folded in the cargo area and gets opened when the wheels stop.

It has never gone down the road with a dog inside it. In my car it is equipment that lives folded in the cargo area and gets opened when the wheels stop.

Ventilation, Zippers and the Escape Proof Problem

The mesh is the best thing about it. There are three windows of dense mesh, and with the hatch up on a warm June morning the air moves through and a dog can see out on three sides. Scout settles faster in it than she does in a closed carrier, and I think that is the visibility as much as the air. The listing calls it ventilated and that is accurate.

The zippers are the entire security system. There is no latch, no pin, no bar and no frame lock. It closes with a zipper and it stays closed because the zipper holds. Against a dog that paws at the door, that will do. Against a dog that bites at the mesh, it will not, and you should know that before you buy rather than after. The reinforced corners and the protected seams are real and they are sewn well, but they are holding fabric.

I would put it this way. The DONORO crate is for a dog that has already decided to lie down. It is not for a dog that has decided to get out. Six months of use and nothing on mine has torn, but mine has never been tested by a dog trying to leave.

What It Does Not Do That People Assume It Does

People assume a pop up crate is a travel crate for the inside of a moving car. It travels in the sense that it folds and rides in the back. It is not a crate to drive with a dog inside. Nothing about the frame or the bottom is built to be anchored, and there is no strap to run a seat belt through. I have never driven with a dog inside it and I would not.

People also assume the wire frame means the walls are rigid. The frame holds the shape of the crate. The sides are soft. A dog leaning hard on a side will push that side out, which is not a defect, it is what a soft sided crate is, and it is the reason this one weighs a little over three pounds instead of twenty.

The last assumption is about weather. The listing says indoor and outdoor use, and I have used it outdoors, parked, with me standing there. I would not leave it out in rain and I would not leave a dog in it in the sun with no shade. That last part is not about the crate. It is about dogs in parked cars, and the answer is do not.

Putting It Up and Getting It Back Down

Opening it takes about four seconds. Hold it by the wire frame, give it a shake, and it pops into shape. No assembly, nothing to screw in, no poles to thread through sleeves. That part is as easy as the listing makes it look.

Folding it back down took me a month of Saturdays. The first time I tried it in the Tomah lot I got it halfway and then stood there holding it while a transport dog's next driver waited on me, which is not a good feeling. I know the motion now. Press the two short sides in, let the top come down, fold it flat. The pad has to come out first or it bunches in the middle and the frame will not close. Practice in your driveway on a Tuesday so you are not learning it in a parking lot in front of an audience.

The pad is included and it is thin. It is enough to keep a dog off cold pavement and not enough to make a hard surface comfortable for an hour. On longer stops I lay the pad down and put a folded towel on top, which is not elegant and works. The bottom has enough grip that it does not slide around the cargo floor the way a three pound box generally does.

Six Months In, What Has Held Up

Nothing has broken. I want to say that plainly, because a review that only lists problems is as useless as one that only lists praise. The zipper pulls are still attached. The seams at the corners have not opened. The mesh has no holes. The frame still pops into shape and holds it. It has ridden folded behind the back seat through a Wisconsin summer and been opened and closed maybe forty times.

What has aged is the look of it. The pad has gone flat in the middle where Scout stands. The fabric on the bottom has picked up a gray cast from parking lots and one wet morning of grass at a rest stop. None of that changes how it works. If you want something that still looks new after a season, this is not that, and neither is anything else you set on the ground at a truck stop.

The listing carries a one year manufacturer's warranty. I have not had to use it and I am not going to pretend I know how a claim goes, because I do not. It is there on the page.

Who This Is For

If you have a dog under about 25 pounds who travels well and settles when the car stops, this does what it looks like it does. It is light, it folds flat, it opens in seconds, and it gives a dog shade and a boundary at a rest stop instead of a leash wrapped twice around your wrist while you try to drink a coffee.

It also suits the indoor job the listing mentions. The size and the mesh would make a reasonable hour-long spot for a cat, and the listing says as much for this particular size. I have not used it for a cat. I am reporting what the dimensions would allow, not what I have done.

Who Should Skip It

Skip it if your dog chews. Skip it if your dog panics. Skip it if your dog has ever gotten out of anything, because the mesh will not stop that dog and neither will the zipper, and you will be out the money with nothing to show for it.

Skip it if you want a crate to drive with a dog inside. It is not that and it does not claim to be that, but people see the word kennel and assume, so I am saying it twice. Skip it if your dog is over about 30 pounds, because the fine print on the listing says it just fits small dogs and the fine print is the honest half of that page.

And skip it if you want something you set up once and leave up. This is a fold and unfold item. The unfolding is easy and the folding is a skill you have to learn, and if that sounds like a nuisance you will resent it by the third trip. Another volunteer at the rescue has a soft crate with no wire in it that folds open like a tent. I have not owned it, I have only watched her set it up in the same parking lot, and it is a different animal entirely.

Six months and one small terrier later, I am keeping the DONORO crate. It earns its space in the cargo area about once a month and that is exactly the job I bought it for. It is not a crate I would trust with a dog I did not know well, and it is not a crate I would trust at all with a dog that wanted out. Read the bullet points instead of the title and you will get what you came for.