HareHill Hounds

home of america's top ibizan hounds

How to Build a Kennel Room

We've received many compliments on our kennels. Several people have asked how we designed and built them.

It's easy to throw a kennel together. Go to your local Home Depot or Menards. Buy a kit and voila, you have a 4x8 chain link kennel. Unfortunately, they're not very attractive and they may not be something that you'll want to leave your favorite hound in for extended periods of time.

We really gave a lot of thought to our kennel room and the design of our house when we built it. The kennels had to be built with the comforts and needs of our dogs in mind.

Design


outside plan

The kennels are built as in-out runs. Each dog has it's own kennel. A doggie door allows them to go between the inside and outside areas of their run.

Our house is built on a hill (hence our kennel name, HareHill), with an exposed basement. The kennels are located in the basement under the kitchen. The builder installed a 4-foot wide, double-wall of mason bricks from the garage floor down to ground level - to provide maximum saftey and stability for the exposed area.

A door from the kitchen leads out to a deck which covers the runs. With the mason brick wall and being located on the southeast corner, the kennels have much protection from the elements.

The runs are also very stealthy. Being located off the basement on the back of the house, you can't see them from the road. In fact, you can't even see them when your standing on the driveway just 10 feet away from them. You have to walk to the deck to see them. And it's really hard to see the kennels from the back of the house because of the hill.

We measured the areas (inside and outside) and used Microsoft Visio to determine panel placement and which ones to order.


inside plan

front
 

panel
 
 
connector and door stop

Kennel Panels

We researched many kennel manufacturers and settled on the Premier line of kennels from Priefert. Their kennel panels are great! Very easy to put together. Very easy to remove panels quickly to reconfigure or open up an area for maintenance. They come in a variety of sizes that enables you to assemble them in various configurations.

If you go with Priefert, you'll work through one of their listed distributors. The kennel panels will be freight shipped to you, unless you have a large truck and and pick them up. The panels are significantly more than chain link. But you get what you pay for. They look better than chain link and are way easier to put together. It took us under one hour to setup the inside kennel. The outside kennels took only slightly longer. Since we plan to stay in this house for many years, we wanted to do it right the first time.

In-Out Doors (aka doggie doors)


Hale Security door

We selected the Hale Security self-framing wall mounted pet doors. We highly recommend these. Our builder installed these during construction. We measured the exterior wall dimensions and used Microsoft's Visio to provide a builder with a diagram of where to locate each door.

The doors fit perfectly inside the 2x6 exterior walls and are double-flapped. The flaps have performed well in all weather from -20�F to 100�F. In the middle of winter you cannot feel a draft (except where one of the dogs "customized" the flap with their teeth). Reese has customized 2 of her flaps. Luckily they are easy enough to replace (but still $50 a flap).


wall plan

Additionally, each door has a locking cover made out of 3/16" Lexan (polycarbonate) with a steel dead-bolt to hold it in place. This is the "security" feature. If you go away and take the dogs with you, drop the covers in place and no one is getting in. They're literally bullet proof.

Inside Wall

Ceramic tile covers the inside wall around the doggie doors. This was done for easy clean-up and to discourage scratching the wall and tearing holes in the drywall. We purchased inexpensive 12"x12" tile at Menards. Be sure to get keep it as thin as possible. We didn't consider the thickness at the time and a couple of the security panels ended up being a bit tricky to remove and drop back in place.

Inside Floor


radiant floor

The inside floor is poured concrete with radiant heat. It's always nice and warm in the winter.

Rustoleum's garage floor epoxy paint (tan with the anti skid flakes) was used to seal the floor. It keeps dust down and is easy to clean. Two cans covered the floor. We let it set a few days before assembling the inside Priefert kennel panels.

Outside Floor (aka ground)

A 3-foot wide strip of cement was poured under all the doors the entire length of the wall. Simple cement blocks form Menards was used to frame the outside of the runs to contain the gravel, provide a solid base and to discourage tunneling out. Pea gravel was then used to fill the area (which makes for really easy cleanup).

Kennel room and the future

We haven't finished off the basement yet. Eventually the kennel room will be separate from the rest of the basement with cabinets for storage. There is a fireplace at floor level in what will be the finished portion of the walk out basement. When it's all done, the dogs will be able to lay on the floor right in front of it - which they really enjoyed doing in our old house.

We've been kicking around the idea of placing a web cam down in the kennel room just to see what goes on while we are gone. There are days we come home and Catdog has "collected" all the bedding from everyone's run (even 2 down from his), and built himself quite the nice bachelor pad. It's been pretty funny.

Everyday use and experience

Our 2 Basenjis have the end run with the windows because they love to lay in the sun. They are 13 and 14 years old. Gable even hangs outside in the winter.

Having the in/out kennels is really nice. Since both of us work full time, we never have to worry about coming home to a messy crate if someone couldn't make it all day.

However, we had a really bad blizzard that covered the two outermost runs with 5-feet of snow. We came home and found that the Basenjis had made a mess in their inside kennel. Snow had completely blocked their doggie door. It took a good 40 minutes to shovel all the snow out. Usually the weather doesn't blow in from the southeast.

Covering the top of the outside

As an afterthought, we zip-tied 3" metal fencing across the top of the outside runs. This not only keeps anyone from climbing out, it (more importantly) keeps unwanted critters from climbing in.

Benefits of Priefert kennels components


kit
  • Durability
    • 1 5/8" tubular steel frame
    • 8 gauge 2" X 4" welded wire
    • Powder coated finish
  • Safety
    • No exposed bolts
    • No exposed wire ends
    • No sharp edges
    • Lockable sliding door latch
    • Reversible door block
  • Easy to assemble
    • Available with optional panels that block dogs' vision to reduce kennel running