Do-it-yourself dog house: dimensions, insulation

When a dog appears in the house, the question of housing immediately arises: somewhere she must sleep and hide from the rain. Not everyone wants and can keep them in the house, because the kennel is required. A do-it-yourself dog house is built, even without skills, in one day. There is nothing complicated, but there are features.

Decide on size and design

The right booth for a dog is built for a reason: you need to know what size it is required, where and what size to make a hole, what is better to make and how to insulate.

First to first, they are determined with the size of the dog kennel. The easiest way is to focus on the dimensions of your dog. In height, the dog house should be 5-6 cm higher than the pet, in width / depth approximately equal to the length of the body, plus 10-20 cm in length to be able to extend the paws. In general, cynologists have recommendations for the size of dog kennels. They recommend making booths depending on the size of the breed. The data are presented in the table (width / length / height of the dog house are given in centimeters):

If your pet does not exceed the average size of its breed, you should not increase the booth: it will be difficult for him to warm it in winter. Please note that these are internal dimensions, if sheathing is planned, the dimensions are increased by the wall thickness.

What is the width of the hole

There are recommendations regarding the width of the hole. It is determined depending on the width of the dog’s chest. Measure, add 5 cm, get the width of the hole. The height depends on the height of the withers: add 5 cm to the measured value. For a puppy, the hole is made small at first – a little more than required, as it grows up.

The hole in the doghouse is not located in the center, but closer to one of the walls. With such a structure, the dog will be able to hide from rain or wind behind a solid wall, curled up in a protected part. It is often proposed to divide the booth with a partition, making a kind of “tambour” and a sleeping area. But hiding in a fenced-off compartment, the dog cannot control what is happening in the entrusted territory. Many conscientious watchmen really do not like to go there. Some, even in the most severe frosts, lie opposite the entrance, not wanting to leave the post. So, the variant with a displaced manhole shown in the photo is optimal.

Another point: at the entrance to the doghouse there should be a threshold 10-15 cm high. It protects the dog lying in front of the entrance from wind and precipitation, prevents snow and rain from clogging inside.

Roof type

The roof in the dog house can be single-pitched or double-pitched. Shed, preferably: not very large animals like to sit / lie on it. So they can control a large area.

Another point: since there is no heating in the booth, in winter the air in it is heated from the heat generated by the body. The larger the volume, the longer the kennel will warm up. The gable roof on the dog house just significantly increases this volume, without bringing any other benefit. If you want your dog to be happy, make a pitched roof.

If you don’t like it at all in terms of aesthetics, make a ceiling, and then the roof itself on top. Moreover, it is desirable to make it removable or folding – on hinges. So it will be more convenient to carry out periodic cleaning and disinfection: organic residues are clogged in the cracks, in which fleas breed. It is from them that you will have to process the kennel from time to time.

The dog house must have a floor raised above the ground. To do this, make the legs at least a few centimeters high or knock down the frame, on which the floor boards are laid directly.

In general, if possible, dogs prefer to spend time outside. Therefore, it would be nice to make a canopy in front of the doghouse or on the side of it. And in order to be able to sit / lie under it – make a flooring.

In this booth, not a folding roof, but a front wall, which is also convenient for processing.

Read more about building a winter chicken coop here.

What to build and how to insulate

Most often, a dog house is made of wood or wood-based materials. Wood is preferable – it keeps cool in summer and warm in winter. In it, the dog will quite comfortably endure the winter, if the boards are fitted tightly, there are no gaps, even with a single wall, the wooden booth is warm. So that, by the way, the booth for the dog turned out without cracks, they use an edged board, sometimes even tongue-and-groove.

Concrete and brick booths are not the best choice: they conduct heat well, they are too hot in summer and very cold in winter. That is why dogs often prefer to spend the night in the open air, and not in a brick kennel.

If wood is too expensive, use boards for the frame, and everything else can be made from OSB, fiberboard, plywood. If you use sheet wood material, you may need two layers of it: it is still much thinner than wood and, due to the presence of a binder, has better thermal conductivity (retains heat worse). Therefore, in this case, you can think about warming the booth for the winter.

You can insulate with any suitable material. You can use the remains of the construction of a house, cottage, bath. It can be mineral wool (as in the photo), polystyrene foam or other material. When insulating with foam plastic, do not overdo it: it does not allow air to pass through, and if you hang a curtain on the manhole, the dog will stop sitting in the booth: there will not be enough air for it. Therefore, either leave small gaps or provide some kind of air intake channel.

If we are to insulate, then the floor and roof too. They are also made double, laying the same insulation. Too much insulation layer should not be done: the dog itself can warm up well, besides, it has a decent fur coat. And it is worse for her – frequent sudden changes in temperature than constant cold. If you want the dog to be warm, fill the kennel with straw for the winter: they will trample it where necessary, and throw away the excess. You need to change such a litter twice during the winter.

For the winter, a dense fabric, cut into rather thick strips, is nailed over the manhole. Two panels cut with noodles are fixed with a shift of cuts. So it turns out that the wind does not blow into the dog house, and the entrance / exit is free. But some dogs do not immediately get used to such an innovation and sometimes refuse to go inside.

You can paint the outside of the booth, but not the inside. The canopy and the wall from the wind (preferably one deaf one) are treated with antiseptics. There is no point in painting them. The main thing is to make the roof without cracks, so that it does not flow inside and does not blow out.

A firewood shed or a firewood shed is easy to make with your own hands. How to read here.

Do-it-yourself insulated dog house

If we talk about the drawings, but the animal does not need any “bells and whistles” and too large sizes too. For them, this is a hole, and by definition, it cannot be large, and it is difficult to heat extra volumes in winter. The booth was made with two windproof walls and a small canopy.

First, two pallets were made in size with supports for four square beams, then they were connected to each other. It turned out a podium, on which the floor boards were fixed. The legs in the design are desirable – the floor will not get wet.

Bars were fixed in the corners. At the junction, six pieces were obtained: four for the kennel itself, two in front for windproof walls. First, they made the inner lining, to which they fixed 7 cm of foam, then sheathed the outside. To prevent water from flowing into the walls between the boards, the gap was closed from above with a plank of suitable width.

For the outer cladding of the wall, to which the windproof wall adjoins, the whole boards were used – so the structure is more rigid.

The longest fuss was with the roof. I didn’t want to make it completely flat, so we made an insulated shield strictly in size, which was attached to a slightly rounded roof from typesetting rails. At least it turned out without a slope, but due to the sloping shape, the water drains without problems. Since it still did not work out hermetically, a film was placed under the slats.

Booth from a bar for Alabai from a bar

Let’s say right away that a doghouse was built from materials left after the construction of the bathhouse. It will also be placed next to it, because in appearance it should resemble the bath itself.

This booth for a dog was based on a drawing with the dimensions of the booth for Alabai. But since the dog is not an Alabai, the sizes were made more modest. Adjustments were also made to the design: a window was made for viewing in the side wall, and a door for cleaning in the back.

First, they built and painted a platform – from the remains of logs, which were planed and knocked together. Then the actual assembly of the booth for the dog began. First, they planed and sawed in the workshop, and the finished structure was taken out and installed in place – near the bathhouse.

The first crown was laid whole. It forms the threshold and serves as a support for the entire structure. Then the beam was cut according to the scheme. Considering that the work experience was already there (the bath was built), the work went quickly.

Since it was supposed to make the roof a “house”, like in a bathhouse nearby, so that the dog would be warm, they made a ceiling. For it, a sheet of plywood was used. A dowel was made in the beam, on which a sheet of thick plywood cut to size was laid. Then the roof panels were assembled and installed.

They were not assembled according to the rules – they did not make a truss system. Since the roof is decorative, they assembled shields, upholstered them with the remnants of soft tiles (also left from the construction of the bath), then they were connected and sheathed with gables.

Then the pediments were sheathed with boards. The cracks were covered with boards. The dog house is ready. Made by hand in half a day.

Such a structure for a dog of this size will still be large. This kennel is designed for larger dogs. The situation can only be saved by a partition installed inside, which reduces the width.

Another do-it-yourself dog house is made of OSB, covered with a professional sheet (insulation and inner lining are planned). The assembly process was filmed on video.