Building Dog Enclosure

[Poodle wrangler]

We're looking at buying a house with no fencing.

Any suggestions for dog enclosures for the non-handyperson?

Prices?

Need to factor in to cost of house as dam (snakes) and main road not far away.

They'd need shelter (sun, rain) + space?

Breeds are 1x standard poodle + 1 X miniature poodle.

Neither escape artists in past, but you never know.

Dogs often inside, but need a place outdoors for when I'm out for the day etc.

Have a crate we use for travelling, but obviously don't want to crate them for several hours!

Thanks

[persephone]

Have you checked in local papers ..or on gumtree/trading post? A lot of folks sell dog/cat runs/kennels..or big roofed aviaries which can be adapted :)

[pipsqueak]

These are in NSW or QLD, but would ship. Not sure how they compare price-wise to others, but offer them as a starting point, just in case you cannot find anything else...

http://www.kennelsolutions.com.au/dog_kennel_kits/premier_kennel_kits.html

http://www.kennelsolutions.com.au/dog_kennel_kits/chainlink_kennel_kits.html

http://shop.vebopet.com.au/store/4-metre-triple-dog-run-fence-fencing-with-3-doors-1-5m-tall.html

http://www.carringtonkennels.com.au/dogs.html - these guys are based in NSW, but they might be able to help you out with someone who supplies locally?

[Wobbly]

There's a lady in my area who used stakes and chicken wire to good effect, it keeps her BC and staffy in effectively. That wouldn't have worked me though, I had to build a fence (at great expense).

It depends on the dogs and whether you plan to leave them in the backyard unsupervised (something I would never do, even with the best fence in the world, I'm pretty sure it'd only take 1 successful escape for my dog to realise fences are no real obstacle to her at all) or only give them access to it while you are home.

[espinay2]

You can purchase dog run panels from places like Metalmart in Fyshwick (I use the metalmart ones - very strong and you can move them or put them in any configuration you want).

Or Col Weston Sheds (in Mitchell) does dog runs with sheds attached.

Edited November 2, 2012 by espinay2

[bedazzledx2]

Check out your local FreeCycle website and also most suburbs have a FaceBook Buy Swap and Sell page. I got swimming pool fencing and gates very cheap that way.

[WreckitWhippet]

I looked at Col Wwestern sheds when building my kennels and they were quite cheap and nasty.

For a reasonable price you can get Carrington kennels. I ended up with 3 runs, with kennels and a roof that also covered the runs. They were very reasonably priced.

My suggestion would be to build something that is solid and going to last. By the time you buy three vebo pens and put beds, kennels and a roof on them, you are within strking distance of a decent kennel set up

[Christina]

With the help of friends I built all my cat runs & got all the stuff from salvage yards & garage sales except the wire. I always use new wire & buy it by the roll, its so much cheaper. Chicken wire is far too flimsy & hard to handle so use a tougher grade aviary wire & ring around for prices, variations can be up to $40 for the same wire.

For the individual run in the photo with the cat in it we made the plan, measured up & paid an extra dollar per piece to have the steel cut to size. Joined it up with L shaped brackets & tec screws & only concreted in the 4 corner posts with ready set so its all easy to remove & dismantle if I ever need to. The run is about 4.5 metres long. Steel was $4 per metre. Wire $130 per roll. Pavers, roof sheets & door was from garage sales. Came in at about $400.

The other huge odd shaped run was a garden feature with the perma pine posts in place. Used some imagination & converted it. Love this, its around 40 feet long & cost was about $600. You could make something similar for your dogs & alter how much was enclosed etc. New sheets of 2.4 metre tin are only $20 at the salvage place here & there are all sorts of interesting materials new & used that can create anything you want.

ETA just checked out the 1st kennel kit link above the prices.

Edited November 3, 2012 by Christina

[Wobbly]

You made cat runs so your cats could go outside without interacting with local wildlife? Cats are happy and safe, so are birds and snakes.

Christina, you are officially awesome!

[Esky the husky]

You should see some of the cat runs in the cat subforum thing wobbly. People have some really awesome set ups.

If you're buying the property Poodlewrangler are you going to put up some fences eventually.

You're pretty lucky to have a blank slate to work with to do what you like.

:)