There are many great sled dog house designs out there, some include insulation and less materials/labor.
We still have some of our original square style sled dog houses that are made from one sheet of plywood. Most of them had to be painted again or remodeled as the roof took a good beating from the dogs and weather. I also made the mistake of insulating those houses with 2″ pink foam which the dogs chewed up in less than a year. Lucky none of them got I’ll and I believe it was unnecessary. Straw is some the safest insulation you can find and yes it’s plenty warm enough for your Eurohounds, hound crosses, or short haired companions. In the dead of winter we clean out the old straw from the barrels and pack the houses full of fresh straw about every 2.5-3 weeks. When it’s colder than -20F at night the dogs get loaded in the dog trailer with all of them in there they heat it up to 70F. Yes they would be fine in their houses but it helps save on groceries during those cold couple of weeks in northern Minnesota. If you are concerned about it getting wet inside the barrel, just add some pine shavings to the dogs bedding.
Benefits over square style houses:
- low maintenance
- easy to clean
- less chewing and yearly repair
- no painting
- no rotting wood
- 100% wind/waterproof (barrel)
- a higher platform to roost, jump for exercise
- significant summertime shade
- lasts longer than the life of the dog
Building these sled dog houses takes about 45 minutes if you build one at a time. You can do it a little quicker if you have to build multiple houses by cutting all the lumber first.
If you use new treated lumber as we do, the cost is around ~$85 which does not include the price of the plastic barrel. You can do it at half that cost if you chose to stain or paint the houses or use recycled lumber.
There is no danger to dogs by chewing on treated lumber as it’s no longer treated with arsenic. My last litter of pups ate/chewed their entire whelping house up in just a couple of weeks. One would think they were little beavers 😉
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