Kennel Setups

[Josh_D.]

I do not have hounds and I have not had any experience running dogs.  I am curious and looking to learn more about how kennels are set up.  Do you keep your dogs outside always?  Is it typical to have the kennel designed to separate all the dogs from each other?  Im extremely interested in all the knowledge y'all have!  Thanks in advance

[WA hunter14]

seperate dog houses with dogs on chains, personally im not gonna spend money to fence in a tiny spot for everydog and have to clean it out everyday.

[WAcoyotehunter]

My four hounds run the backyard and have a dog door into the garage.  There they have couple beds that they share.  When its cold, they sleep in the mudroom.... They're spoiled!

[plottwalker]

I have 8 kennels 6x12 with barrels in each kennel, dogs are separated, dryer felt for flooring so they cant dig out, and metal roof over 3/4 of the kennel so they dont have to stand in the rain. i have done chain for years and like the kennels better. lots of way to keep dogs, i would start with chain and barrels, if you like it stick with it, if you get out of hounds its real easy to toss some chain and barrels away, only build a kennel if your in it for the long haul and the chain isn't working out for you.

[WA hunter14]

oh and i have two that sleep inside and stay outside when im at work off chain and they never leave the property

[Josh_D.]

Thanks for all the replies! Hearing these setups really helps me think through potential problems and solutions.

[Machias]

I've done a whole variety of setups.  Chain with a dog house, cable with a dog house.  Then I built 15 foot long by 7 foot wide by 6 foot tall kennels using hog panels.  I put down 3 to 4 inch rock, covered it with chain link fencing over the rocks and then covered that with about 3 inch layer of pea gravel.  I had pressure treated post that were covered by sheet metal, didn't want them chewing on the pressure treated wood.  Loved it for a couple of years and then it got harder and harder to keep clean, particularly when it rained hard or snowed.  Then I went to a concrete pad with chain link kennels, 10 X 10, with dog house, but no roof.  Better, easy to keep clean until the winter hit and it was a pain in the butt.  Then I put an over hang on and found what I considered my perfect set up.  LOVED it best of all.  Easy to clean, dogs had shade, no snow in the kennels to deal with.  By far my favorite set up.

[Houndhunter]

I like chain link panels with horse mats for the floor. Easy to clean and set up/take down is very easy, but chain on a 55gal barrel is a nice easy set up too. I got mine in horse stalls now, fully covered which is really nice but I kind of lucked out getting that set up. Had my first dog on a concrete pad which was really nice but I'd never put in concrete now as i'm always moving from place to place. I always take pics of my set ups, heres one of what I think is the easiest and most convenient ways to set up a kennel

[bearpaw]

Depends where we're at how we have the dogs set up. I've had dogs on chains with wooden dog houses mostly. That's the way I keep them in Washington now. Years ago when I lived in town I had the back yard fenced with 6 foot board fence and the dogs on chains with individual houses, that kept the dogs from seeing all the passerby's and they were pretty quiet. We have a plan for getting 1 doghouse out of one sheet of plywood or OSB, we've also got a few barrel dog houses too that we use use at times. We have a couple panel kennels for keeping puppies that work great. We also have an old calf barn in Idaho that we modified with 8 kennels on each side, it works pretty good during winter when it's cold and we are hunting the dogs a lot, but I wouldn't want my dogs in there year around, hounds need to be outside and in the summer it might be hot. In the summer it's good if the dogs have open air and some shade or soft ground they can dig holes for shade and coolness.

[plottwalker]

not a good picture, but this is what i have, top is 3/4 covered, water buckets site out so the rain water off the roof will fill them most of the time, dryer felt floor, the barrels are 3" off the ground with dryer felt flaps to keep weather out, just put cedar shaving in the barrels, kennels have lasted 10 years so far.