My husband and I recently purchased a home with our dogs in mind. we own 3 dogs.
a basset hound, a siberian husky, and a APBT. The main reason we purchased the house is the great potential for our 3 boys. It has a very large yard and the large sun room addition had already been partially converted into a large insulated kennel area. Before moving in we put up a 6 ft wood privacy fence. Spring is fast approaching and we want to convert this partial kennel into a very nice area for our dogs.
I would like suggestions if anyone has any.
- We would like to first do the cement floor. We originally just going to just seal the floor with a cement seal and then have beds. but I notice alot of kennels use pea gravel which is what ive been thinking about using. any other things that have worked for you?
-the second issue is the walls right now are cheap wood paneling. but its been urinated on from the previous owners animals for many years. so its all rotted and gross. Its all going to come off. but what to replace it with? its has to be durable and washable. any suggestions?
-The third issue is heating and cooling. we live near Chicago our temps can be anywhere. There are no vents running out into this area. The windows are small so it does not get the green house feel to much. ( and they all open) Even on the hottest day it does not get into dangerously high killer temps. HOWEVER it can become uncomfortable. Would large hanging industrial sized fans be enough for the dogs? especially our husky? the next option would be to get a window AC for the kennel or knock a hole in the wall to bring the vents out.
HEATING. Even in sub zero temps we had there was only 1 day that the water froze in the kennel area over night ( dogs sleep inside the house ) We use a dog friendly large space heater to heat the kennel during the day but that space heater was super expensive and its not ment for a dog kennel! We want a better option. We were thinking hanging heat lamps or space heaters from the ceiling. Any suggestions?
also any suggestions for keeping dogs from digging under fencing and keeping them off the fence line would be awesome. Our lot shares a fence line with a family who has an aggressive dog. its a wood privacy fence but i wish there was a way to keep them off that fence. ( our pitbull was walking around with half of a fence piece in his mouth once he was on top of the world in his mind. )
Other things that factor into the suggestions are. as i mentioned we have 3 dogs. they share the space outside, but 2 of them are major home bodies they prefer the couch to the great outdoors. one of them the APBT is the one who loves it outside he never wants to come in. My husky is aggressive with him, in the past this sparked serious fights when we first rescued the pitbull. Let the record show! that our pit is very friendly and loves dogs people cats and any other animal that will play with him. Our husky unknown to us at the time is dog aggressive to certain dogs and our pitbull was forced to defend himself. We do not allow them to be together. one is always in and one is always out. all of them are neutered! We worked with training them and its a risk we do not want to take even though we made progress in this issue. We made a choice to keep them separated. So they are both content sharing their indifferent dog buddy the basset hound who enjoys playing with both of them. So the outdoor haven is mostly for this issue. one of these dogs has to be outside, however we do switch them out. that is why we want to make a cozy nice area for them when they do have to spend a few hours outside.
Sorry for the big read! but any suggestions or trial and error experiences would be awesome! thankyou!
a basset hound, a siberian husky, and a APBT. The main reason we purchased the house is the great potential for our 3 boys. It has a very large yard and the large sun room addition had already been partially converted into a large insulated kennel area. Before moving in we put up a 6 ft wood privacy fence. Spring is fast approaching and we want to convert this partial kennel into a very nice area for our dogs.
I would like suggestions if anyone has any.
- We would like to first do the cement floor. We originally just going to just seal the floor with a cement seal and then have beds. but I notice alot of kennels use pea gravel which is what ive been thinking about using. any other things that have worked for you?
-the second issue is the walls right now are cheap wood paneling. but its been urinated on from the previous owners animals for many years. so its all rotted and gross. Its all going to come off. but what to replace it with? its has to be durable and washable. any suggestions?
-The third issue is heating and cooling. we live near Chicago our temps can be anywhere. There are no vents running out into this area. The windows are small so it does not get the green house feel to much. ( and they all open) Even on the hottest day it does not get into dangerously high killer temps. HOWEVER it can become uncomfortable. Would large hanging industrial sized fans be enough for the dogs? especially our husky? the next option would be to get a window AC for the kennel or knock a hole in the wall to bring the vents out.
HEATING. Even in sub zero temps we had there was only 1 day that the water froze in the kennel area over night ( dogs sleep inside the house ) We use a dog friendly large space heater to heat the kennel during the day but that space heater was super expensive and its not ment for a dog kennel! We want a better option. We were thinking hanging heat lamps or space heaters from the ceiling. Any suggestions?
also any suggestions for keeping dogs from digging under fencing and keeping them off the fence line would be awesome. Our lot shares a fence line with a family who has an aggressive dog. its a wood privacy fence but i wish there was a way to keep them off that fence. ( our pitbull was walking around with half of a fence piece in his mouth once he was on top of the world in his mind. )
Other things that factor into the suggestions are. as i mentioned we have 3 dogs. they share the space outside, but 2 of them are major home bodies they prefer the couch to the great outdoors. one of them the APBT is the one who loves it outside he never wants to come in. My husky is aggressive with him, in the past this sparked serious fights when we first rescued the pitbull. Let the record show! that our pit is very friendly and loves dogs people cats and any other animal that will play with him. Our husky unknown to us at the time is dog aggressive to certain dogs and our pitbull was forced to defend himself. We do not allow them to be together. one is always in and one is always out. all of them are neutered! We worked with training them and its a risk we do not want to take even though we made progress in this issue. We made a choice to keep them separated. So they are both content sharing their indifferent dog buddy the basset hound who enjoys playing with both of them. So the outdoor haven is mostly for this issue. one of these dogs has to be outside, however we do switch them out. that is why we want to make a cozy nice area for them when they do have to spend a few hours outside.
Sorry for the big read! but any suggestions or trial and error experiences would be awesome! thankyou!
