Customizing your own dog kennel ensures the enclosure will meet your pet's specific needs.
If you own more than one dog, or if you need somewhere to enclose your pets while you're away, a dog kennel is a sensible solution. Building your own dog kennel is the best way to ensure the design and dimensions are appropriate for your specific companion. There are several approaches to constructing a simple dog kennel. Have your measurements with you when you go to the store for supplies.
Instructions
1. Place the raised, plastic kennel flooring on the ground. You can find several distributors from which to order ready-to-use dog kennel flooring.
Dig a trench with your shovel around the edges, approximately five inches deep. Remove the flooring and continue excavating the entire area at the same depth you dug the trench.
2. Move the flooring out of the way. At the edges of the shallow hole, where you dug the trenches, place 4x4 boards. Secure them into a rectangle, or square depending on the shape of your flooring, at the corners with a hammer and nails. Use at least two nails for each joint.
You should have a box frame, set down slightly into the earth, at this point.
3. Fasten the chain-link panels to three of the inside walls of the rectangular frame with brackets. Most chain link panels come with support beams on each side, so they'll stand erect. If your panels don't have them, you'll need to brace them upright with 2x4s or some other kind of supportive pole.
Also, if you select chain-link panels that don't have the ability to latch to one another at the edges, you'll need to buy fastener components to secure the four corners of the kennel together.
Purchase brackets with sharp ends, like nails. This will allow you to simply hammer them around links of chain directly into the frame.
4. Slide the raised flooring into the open side of the kennel. It should sit flush against the three chain link walls, leaving no gaps into which a dog could stick its paws.
Also, the bottom of the fence should be well-covered by the sides of the raised flooring. Prop up the side of the flooring so that it will be touching the gate. This will allow you to get your hammer under it to secure the chain link gate to the frame.
5. Connect the chain-link gate to the remaining side of the frame with brackets. Be sure you purchase a chain-link gate that will sit flush with the panels on the two surrounding sides.
Open the gate so you can remove the prop from beneath the flooring. The raised floor should fall down into place, flush now with all four walls of the dog kennel.
6. Measure panels of fence that will sit atop the kennel's four walls. Cut them out with wire cutters. Cut also sections of fence that can be wound with a needle-nose pliers around the edges of the walls and the edges of the roof.
Twist sections of wire through the top four corners of the kennel, connecting the walls to the roof. To be safe, use one additional connection per side.
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