Winterize A Dog Kennel || Winter is a beautiful season, but it also brings cold temperatures and harsh weather conditions that can affect our furry friends. As responsible pet owners, it’s crucial to ensure our dogs have a comfortable and safe living environment, especially if they have a dog kennel in a cold climate area. Winterizing your dog kennel becomes really important in cold weather areas, as it helps protect your beloved canine companion from the freezing temperatures and potential health risks. In this blog post, we will guide you through the essential steps to winterizing a dog kennel, providing valuable tips and insights to create a cozy haven for your poch during the chilly months.
How to winterize a dog kennel
Insulate Your Dog’s House
Ensure that the kennel has proper insulation. This can include adding insulation to the walls, ceiling, and floor. Insulation helps retain heat and provides a barrier against cold drafts.
Weatherproofing
Seal any gaps or cracks in the dog kennel to prevent cold air from entering. Use weather-stripping or caulk to seal openings in doors, windows, and walls. This will help keep the interior warm and cozy for your pup.
Elevated Flooring: Provide an elevated flooring option, such as a raised platform or a bed with insulation, to keep your dog off the cold ground. This helps prevent heat loss through conduction.
Heating: Consider adding a heating source to the kennel, such as a heated bed or a heated pad. Make sure to choose a safe heating option designed specifically for pets and follow the manufacturer’s instructions.
Bedding: Use warm and comfortable bedding materials, such as blankets or straw, to provide insulation and keep your dog cozy.
Adequate Ventilation: While insulation is important, ensure that there is still proper ventilation to prevent condensation and maintain good air quality. Proper air circulation helps prevent moisture buildup and reduces the risk of respiratory issues.
Water Supply: Ensure your dog has access to fresh, unfrozen water. Consider using heated water bowls or insulating existing bowls to prevent freezing.
Adequate Space: Make sure the kennel is large enough for your dog to move around comfortably. A cramped space can make it difficult for your dog to generate and maintain body heat.
Regular Maintenance: Regularly check the kennel for any damage, leaks, or drafts throughout the winter season. Address any issues promptly to maintain a safe and warm environment.
Remember to monitor your dog’s behavior and well-being during the colder months. Some breeds are more tolerant of cold weather than others, but it’s important to take precautions to ensure your dog’s comfort and safety in a cold climate.
Choose the right bedding
The dog beds need care, as most of the dogs inside the kennel may chew up or create a dent inside the kennel, causing serious harm to the entire doghouse. Nowadays, different types of natural beddings are available, which are non-toxic and have no specific harmful chemicals. You can browse and find organic dog beds on Amazon, which costs around $40. With discounts, you can get them for as low as $30.
Insulate the kennel
There are allergic syndromes seen in the dogs after a long winter season, and thus the dog kennel needs to be sprayed with dog anti-allergic spray, which costs around $60. Most of the time dogs cannot come out of their dog kennel in times of snowstorm or cold breeze, so they keep on chewing on the insulation or bed cover.
To stop this, make a plywood structure and use it as an insulating cover. There are different doghouse heaters which come at the cost of $80 or $90 on Amazon, but with discounts, you can get them as low as $40. In other words, you can get a base cost ranging from $100 to $120, and get the basic benefits of being a proud kennel owner, by innovating on some simple hacks.
Paint the kennel
One of those free hacks is to paint the kennel house with black paint. All of these hardly need any strong requirement and may be done even below $50 routinely. There are vinyl trapping materials available on eBay or on Amazon which require you to pay $40, and these vinyl wrapping substances are sufficiently sustainable to trap and circulate the heat all around the kennel house. The door needs to be changed during winter, as making a plastic door to winterize is the best way to get under $10 and do the whole thing.
Short hacks that haul better
There are a few other things to overhaul the kennel house which can be done even free of cost, such as making a few plywood planks and pushing up the height of the kernel house, much above the ground.
This costs some wood, which can be managed directly from a nearby suburb. You can expect to cut down the cost of insulating to even $5, as the aluminum foil and protective covering usually do not cost exceeding $20, and traps the heat inside the kennel house. The surface and the ceiling of the kennel house need an insulating layer, which you can even home make with aluminum wrapper, thermacol and gunny bag skin, all of which cost around $20.
Tips to save your pocket
- Sometimes during the winter, the spreading of the mites, or rodents creates trouble for poor dogs, and thus they need the anti-rodent spray which costs around $28, creating a strong effect. You may as well go for the discounted spray techniques that are available for $15, which are anti-mite sprays available on eBay or in several stores Walmart, or Walgreens stores.
- Making all the holes in the kennel house is the first option that should be done, as it entraps the heat and makes the house comfortable without adding any cost to it. Bedding choices are one of the most important things to remember during the house makeover, and most of the time the choice of bedding needs fine expertise.
- Many low-cost measures are an extension to the house building for a simple dog kennel house, such as making the house size smaller, as a bigger house has larger air space for the dogs to feel cold, the air inside freezes too easily with extended space.
- A thermostat connection may be taken up in the process, as that solves most of the heating problems in one shot, costing $70, which is far less than $100, which needs to be placed far away from the door. Read More>>
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