One of the things we learned in our previous home is that there are times when a kennel building is handy to have. This is especially true when we have puppies. When they get old enough puppies can spend most of the day out there and they're protected as well.  Sometimes we also find it necessary to put some of our adults out in the kennel, especially at night when we're not home.

The kennel can be divided in half when necessary. It is fully heated and cooled with a wall mounted heat pump. The kennel building also has three attached dog runs. They are fully enclosed including tops. The kennel can also be opened up to one or both of the adjacent yards. We built as much flexibility into the kennel, dog runs and yards as possible and we've used almost all of the options on different occasions.

The design of the kennel fits with the rest of the buildings on our property. We patterned it partly from the kennel building we had at our previous house but also made improvements in materials and design. Just inside the door is a work area and storage cabinets that are outside the area where the dogs stay.

The inside of the kennel. The steel fencing in there can be closed or open depending on what we're using it for. There is a sliding gate between the front and back of the kennel and sliding gates into each section from our work area (in the foreground where the adult basset, Moxie, is in the photo) and the door. The two puppies are Sassy and Doc.

The three dog runs offer protection from the local wildlife when necessary and still give the dogs a chance to go outside. The bottoms of the runs are covered with artificial turf over a gravel base. The run on the left connects to our first dog yard and provides access through a doggie door to the back section of the kennel. The dog runs shown on the right are also accessable from the kennel through separate doggie doors. The one in the back has a door into the back section of the kennel and the front run has access into the front section of the kennel. There is also a door between the two runs that can be either opened or closed which adds to the flexibility of the setup. All three dog runs also have doors that can be opened into the adjacent yards and we also put in a doggie door on the the front of the kennel to the yard. The dogs actually enjoy being out in the kennel although we only use it when needed. Most of the time they are in the house or out in the yards.

A kennel room was also created inside the house. It's one of the bedrooms. This room and adjacent yard are used mostly for the boys. We need to be able to separate the boys especially when one or more of the girls is in season. The kennel room has access to the yard and/or an enclosed dog run through doggie doors. Two gates also provide access to the dog's area in the room from the rest of the house. By putting in two gates we have access from the house to the dog's area if we need to divide it into two sections. Sometimes we do this when we have a dog recuperating from surgery or for some other reason one needs to be separated for a short period of time. To keep the room cleaner we ripped out the carpet and had the floor tiled.

The pictures below show the dogs enjoying our kennels. The kennels provide a wonderful place for them especially when we are away from home and we need to lock all the dogs in a safe place.

Kennels

Our kennel room is actually one of the bedrooms in our house. When we bought the house this was just a normal bedroom with carpet covering the floor and no railing or door to the outside. The first things that were added were two doggie doors. One leads out to the back deck and the other to the dog run we added at the end of the house. I added the railing to the room. Later our contractor installed the door to the back yard and I helped him with installing the tile floor. We also had our contractor change the regular door to the room to a Dutch door. That gives a choice of just closing the bottom half of the door which we do when a girl is in season and when we're in there with just the boys. Rarely is the top half of the door closed but it could be if necessary.

Below is the dog run that is attached to this kennel room. We had in put in mostly to provide a place where our dogs could be safe at night. It's ended up being a very useful dog run.

When I designed the railing in the room I placed a gate at both ends. This has come in very handy. When one of our dogs has had surgery or is ill and needs to be separated from the others we can divide the kennel room in half. One half has access to the outside run and the other half has access to the back yard. We've used the room this way several times.