Should I keep my dog on concrete or grass?
- Thread starter petzoopply_com
- Start date
- Tags best for dog
Coming from someone who has had outside dogs in the past and currently will keep the dogs out while we're gone:
Grass is good, but it gets muddy. Depending on how confined the kennel space is (or where the dogs like to walk/nap) you soon won't have grass, you'll have a mud pit. When Chloe was a pup we'd keep her out during the day while we were gone so she wasn't stuck holding her bladder for 8+ hours while we were at school/work, and she had one spot in her kennel that she turned into a dirt mess because that is where she would lay all day long. Then if it even thought about raining I'd come home to a muddy/dirty dog, which was no fun.
I like to do half and half for the kennel. That way they can lay on the cement/pavers if they so desire, it keeps the doghouse up off the soggy ground, it keeps the dishes and toys out of the grass, and it keeps them out of the mud if it rains (and provides an easily shoveling surface if it snows). Not to mention it is that much less mowing you have to do. But, I do think grass is good for digging in and using as the potty corner (and if they want to lay on something other than concrete), so having some grass in the pen is great, too.
Our current kennel setup is 10'x10' pavers and 10'x6' grass. We just bought more kennel panels and aren't quite sure what we want to do with them yet, but they were super cheap off of craigslist ($35 for a double reinforced 10'x10'x6' kennel!) and I couldn't pass them up. We have enough panels now for a 780sq ft area (1280sq ft if we butt it up against the house), so I thinking about making the kennel area itself smaller and having it open up into a dog run...I don't know yet.
Grass is good, but it gets muddy. Depending on how confined the kennel space is (or where the dogs like to walk/nap) you soon won't have grass, you'll have a mud pit. When Chloe was a pup we'd keep her out during the day while we were gone so she wasn't stuck holding her bladder for 8+ hours while we were at school/work, and she had one spot in her kennel that she turned into a dirt mess because that is where she would lay all day long. Then if it even thought about raining I'd come home to a muddy/dirty dog, which was no fun.
I like to do half and half for the kennel. That way they can lay on the cement/pavers if they so desire, it keeps the doghouse up off the soggy ground, it keeps the dishes and toys out of the grass, and it keeps them out of the mud if it rains (and provides an easily shoveling surface if it snows). Not to mention it is that much less mowing you have to do. But, I do think grass is good for digging in and using as the potty corner (and if they want to lay on something other than concrete), so having some grass in the pen is great, too.
Our current kennel setup is 10'x10' pavers and 10'x6' grass. We just bought more kennel panels and aren't quite sure what we want to do with them yet, but they were super cheap off of craigslist ($35 for a double reinforced 10'x10'x6' kennel!) and I couldn't pass them up. We have enough panels now for a 780sq ft area (1280sq ft if we butt it up against the house), so I thinking about making the kennel area itself smaller and having it open up into a dog run...I don't know yet.