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Building a
Dog House
Protect your Dog from Inclement Weather by Building a Dog House
By Mark J. Donovan
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If you have an outside dog, or a
dog that you frequently keep outside during the day, then it is important to
provide some form of shelter for him or her. A dog house is the perfect
shelter for protecting your dog from inclement weather. Building a dog house
is not difficult to do and the costs are minimal. In some cases you may even
have much of the material already on your property to build a dog house.
Whether it is rain, snow, cold,
heat or wind, a dog deserves some of the same creature comforts that humans
need.
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Like humans they can experience
some of the same ill effects as we do by being exposed for prolonged periods
of time to inclement weather, or brutally cold or hot temperature conditions.
Building a dog house can prevent your dog from becoming sick and even dying
under extreme weather conditions.
When deciding upon building a dog
house the first question that normally comes up is how big of dog house do I
need to build? The size of the dog house varies with the size of the dog,
however a common rule of thumb is to build a dog house that is just large
enough for the dog to stand up, turn around and be able to lie back down
comfortably. This said you don’t want to build the dog house too big, as the
dog will be unable to warm the house sufficiently with its body heat.
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To build a dog house, start from the ground up. Use a few concrete blocks to
act as a foundation for supporting the dog house.
Next, build a wood subfloor effectively as you would when building a home. Use
2” x 4 ”s to construct the basic subfloor frame and then sheath the subfloor
frame with plywood. Though normally I would recommend using pressure treated
material when wood may come in contact with moisture, I hesitate to suggest
this for the health reasons of the dog.
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After building the dog house floor,
frame the four walls of the dog house and install the sheathing on them. When
building the front wall of the dog house frame in a rough opening for the
entrance. Again, the size of the dog house door opening is dependent upon the
size of the dog. The dog should be able to walk in and out of the door without
having to crouch down.
After the walls have been framed and
sheathed, nail or screw them to the dog house floor and to each other.
Next, build the dog house roof. You
can either build a standard roof with a central peak or you can build a shed
roof where one side of the roof is higher than the other. If you build a
standard roof, create two gable end frames and attach them to the front and back
walls. Next install a ridgeboard between the peaks of the gable ends. Then nail
roof rafters from the ridgeboard to the side walls of the dog house. Finally
sheath the open gable ends and the roof.
After completing the framing and
exterior sheathing of the dog house, install shingles on the roof.
To dress up the dog house, install
clapboard siding on the exterior walls of the dog house.
Finally paint the exterior of your
dog house and your dog is ready for its new home.
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