# Ideas for fixing my outdoor kennel



## spiritsmom (Mar 1, 2003)

Okay I had a great plan for the dogs' outdoor kennel, but they have proved to be a bit more destructive about it than I thought originally. The kennel is attached to a shed which has a dog door and a/c. Their beds are in the shed. I picked up all the straw I had been using over the winter in the kennel area, sprayed weed killer, put down landscape fabric (staked that down) and then covered with about 5 inches of pea gravel. The kennel has a downhill slope so I need to go back and put wood or pavers up against the chain link since right now the pea gravel is running downhill and out of the kennel through the chain link. Worse is they have dug up and torn the landscape fabric in several spots, mostly the corners, but alot in the center as well. They then got to the dirt and dug deep in a few areas - now the pea gravel has dirt mixed with it which has now turned to mud. My main reason for using pea gravel was to prevent muddy dogs - they figured out a way to defeat that. Also what I didn't think about was how dusty the pea gravel is and how that dust just clings to their coats and makes them feel icky. I've been spraying it down with water or water/odo ban mixture twice a week to cut down on urine smell and to try to get rid of the dust - no luck yet. Any ideas on how to stop the digging because they have very quickly destroyed all my hard work. Diego is chewing on the shed, Berlin is chewing the bark off the trees in the kennel, Nyxie and Kaiser seem to be mostly hanging out inside the shed on their beds. They have chew toys out there but I can't leave Kongs with them because Nyxie will start fights. I'm 99% sure the digging is Diego since he is always covered in mud. Nyxie is a digger too, but she seems to not being doing it in the kennel as she has stayed mud free on her legs - it's just her nose that is always muddy. I've sprayed the stuff they are chewing with bitter spray and that hasn't worked. I sprayed the No Dig stuff and that hadn't worked either. 

I thought about buying a very small pool to put sand in for digging use, but Diego and Berlin would chew the plastic apart and possibly hurt themselves. I have a plastic pool but they only get that when I watch them because they both started gnawing on it. That could kill them. 

Any ideas or options? I'm running to Lowes tonight to buy 2x6 wood to try to terrace it so the grade is a little better and the gravel won't all migrate downhill so much. Also going to put pavers along the chain link and up against it to contain the gravel in the kennel. 

I can't afford to pour concrete when we are selling this house in a few years - if it was to be a long term house I would have done that, but it's not.


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## shilohsmom (Jul 14, 2003)

I can't help but to chuckle...I'm sorry Michelle, it just sooooo sounds like something I would do and with the same reaction from my crew.


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## shilohsmom (Jul 14, 2003)

What about artificial grass? I wonder if that would work?


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## NancyJ (Jun 15, 2003)

Look at the end of this thread
This is what I am planning on doing and techie dog has done
http://www.germanshepherds.com/foru...one-experience-look-please-6.html#post2170181


I know this stuff stands up but don't know of dog experience with it........

I am in the same bind concerning concrete.


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## kiya (May 3, 2010)

I put rubber mats (for horse stalls) under my deck for the dogs, they were getting really dusty from the dirt because its so dry. My dogs haven't chewed them. The only bad thing is they used to be able to dig under the deck now with the mats they cant dig. The older dogs don't really dig anymore put the puppy enjoys it. I noticed a spot in garden under the tall ornamental grasses that she has a hole going. I'll let her dig there. As long as they have a spot to dig my dogs have been good about it. If you think they would chew the pool, how about a wood sand box or leave a section with sand for digging in the kennel. Sand doens't really make the dogs dirty and if its wet it usually will brush right off.


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## BlackthornGSD (Feb 25, 2010)

Rubber stall mats over gravel is what I'd go for. You can hose it down. I don't know that I'd recommend it on a slope, though. :/

Also... that's a lot of big dogs together in one area... I think it's going always require a fair bit of regular upkeep to keep it in decent shape, unfortunately.


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## Jax's Mom (Apr 2, 2010)

How about those 20x20 concrete paving stones?
...like laying concrete, but not?


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## gagsd (Apr 24, 2003)

I have tried everything... even brick.
Darling Dog (AKA Anik) thinks bricks are super duper toys. He actually digs them out and carries them around, prancing. 

Broken toe nails, chipped teeth.... no mind.

Rubber stall mats, VERY heavy. If you use them make sure that the edges are under the fence line. My dogs chewed them up around the edges. Also.... very, very hot to the toes in the summer.

The only thing I have found that really works, is decking or concrete.


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## NancyJ (Jun 15, 2003)

Have you considered fence on the ground between the gravel and the weedblock?


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## Jax's Mom (Apr 2, 2010)

like these things?








We have these and they're 100lbs each.


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## gagsd (Apr 24, 2003)

You know, I don't think even Anik could pick those up. That is gorgeous.


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## NancyJ (Jun 15, 2003)

YOu know I went and looked and using 12x12 pavers it is about the same price as stabilized gravel. Maybe a little more work but a lot more "portable"


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## Jax's Mom (Apr 2, 2010)

jocoyn said:


> YOu know I went and looked and using 12x12 pavers it is about the same price as stabilized gravel. Maybe a little more work but a lot more "portable"


I have a cheat  if the space is small enough, it's less work to just lay them down without the gravel/sand/stone and re-align them the next year if they shift from the winter


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## Jack's Dad (Jun 7, 2011)

I posted on the wrong thread. I'll try again. If you use a base of de-composed granite and then a much thinner layer of cement it would be less expensive. Depending on where you live 3 to 4 inches of cement is standard for a walk or patio. For just your dogs you don't need all that. DG and cement would be cheaper. A contractor or someone might not do it but unless it is to be there for a hundred years or so you do not need more than an inch and a half to two inches of cement
I don't trust the sprays that are used on the pea gravel with regard to toxicity.


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## CassandGunnar (Jan 3, 2011)

I don't know how available they are in your area, but silo staves work great, if you can find them.
For our first dog run/kennel area years ago, we were able to find a bunch of silo staves that we got for free. We just had to go pick them up. We just placed them in a bed of sand, just like laying concrete pavers. You could also put them in the existing pea gravel if you wanted.


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## vomlittlehaus (Aug 24, 2010)

I have 2' x 3' pavers in my kennel. The larger the stone you use (#1's or #2), the better. Pea gravel is going to move around and not pack in very well. You could also get stone dust, which when you put that down and rake it out then wet it, drys like concrete.

If you go to my profile, look at the 'B' litter pics, you can see the kennel.


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## Jack's Dad (Jun 7, 2011)

Don't know how big the area is but you can pour footings around the perimeter several inches like 6 or so wide and 12 or preferably 18 deep and just let them dig. In order to get under an 18in. footing an adult dog would have to dig well over 2ft. to get out.add some heavy guage wire rolled tight just inside the footing near the bottom and you are 99% dog proof. Most will ge tired of digging when it gets them nowhere. There will always be some who will never tire of digging.


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## phgsd (Jun 6, 2004)

My kennels WERE pea gravel, but they just were awful. The pea gravel got ground into the mud and over time it all dried to almost cement and was dusty and smelly. I was soo tired of it!
This year we finally redid them with pavers. One kennel got 12 x 12 and the other got 16 x 16 pavers. The 16" pavers were slightly more expensive but it felt like it was a lot less work! We used the pea gravel underneath to level it and didn't go crazy making it perfectly level. It still looks pretty good though. 

The 12 x 12 pavers were about $1.50 each and the 16" square ones...I forget how much they were each, but they were about 1.80/sq ft.
The downside is that the pavers are very rough and Kessy's feet got sore on them and didn't seem to be improving. So I bought some turt/outdoor carpet type material - you can get it by the foot at hardware stores but I got mine on Ebay, it was the same price and they had color choices. So I put that down on top of the pavers and now it's nice and soft for her.


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## TitonsDad (Nov 9, 2009)

Spend more time with your dogs = less boredom = less destruction. Simple as that. WE go over this plenty of times on this forum.


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## Rerun (Feb 27, 2006)

I would probably try pavers. Our kennel is huge, and is 3/4 concrete. They (aka DANTE) do occasionally dig in the mulch potty area but it's not too bad and I fill in the holes during poop pickup.

For the chewing on the trees - you could wrap them in wire like heavy chicken wire or the field fencing stuff sold in the same area as other wire. Many horse barns do this to keep horses from doing the same thing. Chewing on the shed - maybe put a 3 foot tall stretch of wire across the outside of it with wood staples so it's easily removeable when you move?


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## spiritsmom (Mar 1, 2003)

Great ideas!

I do spend plenty of time with my dogs - when I am home. This kennel is just for when my husband and I are working as opposed to leaving them crated inside the house. And also a potty area for all of them so that the grassy backyard can stay poop free for the kids. So they spend about 6-8 hours a day out there instead of cooped up in a crate indoors. I'm pretty sure they prefer the shed/kennel over being in a crate since they have plenty of space to move around. Besides that Berlin has been having poop issues despite being wormed several times - it got a bit tiresome to have to clean poopy puppy/poopy crate. So everyone is on Panacur for now. 

I'll try nailing the chicken wire to the corners of the shed and hope that will help deter Diego from being a beaver. I did buy 40 of the 12x12 smooth pavers at Lowes tonight - I would have bought the 16x16 but they were just way too heavy. I'm waiting for the stall mats at Tractor Supply to go on sale and then I'll buy a couple. I'll use the pavers I did buy around the perimeter and we got some pressure treated lumber to put up against the chain link to stop the gravel from falling out. I'll work on as much of that tomorrow as I can and leave the terracing to my husband. 

Really wish I could have gone with a nice concrete slab - you all know how hard it is to scoop loose poop out of pea gravel? I am throwing away lots of gravel every time I poop scoop - which is 3x daily. Going to have to order more gravel once this poop storm dissipates! Blech!

The area they have is about 10x12 inside the shed and then the kennel is maybe 18 feet long by 10 feet wide. So it's a decent sized area for them. They all get along well except for when food stuffed Kongs are around, then Nyxie wants to hoard all of them and guard them. I thought about tying Kongs to different parts of the kennel so only one dog could chew on one at a time, but I worry about them fighting over one of them.

Oh and dawnandjr - I really like your kennels and pavers, that will have to be what I do when we move to our next house. I liked your Bianka puppy - I have a daughter named Bianca!


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