The Puppy Proof Pen Project

When I was in dog not coming into season hell, I decided to use a little Law Of Attraction. I have this short chain link pen that I call the Puppy Pen.  It actually stinks as a puppy pen.  The chain link is about four inches wide, perfect for small puppies to crawl through and perfect for not so nice PRTs to stick snouts through to terriorize puppies.It also had embossed pavers in it, perfect to catch lots of puppy poo.

One day this spring before Skye was bred, I decided swap out the smooth pavers in front of the big dog run for the embossed pavers in the puppy run.  It was dirty kind of heavy work, I had to move the pen, pick up the pavers, move the pavers, pick up the other pavers, move then, set all the pavers in their new spots and try to level them out  (If it sounds like I'm whinging, I am!). 

But I managed to get it done and celebrated that with a large gin and tonic and a handful of generic Advil.

There was one last thing to do, which was to puppy proof the pen.What it needed was some hardware cloth to surround it.   I had a number of people say they had extra hardware cloth that I could have for free. I love free, what I don't love is people who don't deliver on free.

A trip to the Home Depot to pick up a twenty five foot roll of 1/2 inch hardware cloth.  I did look at poultry wire for half the price and plastic hardware cloth.   I ended up with the hardware cloth. I just felt better using that instead of something else.

I got my tin snips, a bunch of cable ties and proceeded to wrap the cloth around the pen. I was pretty proud of myself, I managed to cover any and all escape options and fasten the cloth to the pen with the cable ties and very little swearing.....

I also ended up taking one of the spare panels from the old PVC ex pen and made an additional door behind the door to keep the puppies in. Do you know HOW hard it is to keep 5 active Lakie puppies in the pen when you try to do things like put food in or add or subtract pups?  

The Pen Before The Wrap

The Pen After The Wrap.

The pen is not quite as spiffy as the "big dog"runs, but it is paved with smooth pavers (easy to scoop poop, bleach and shovel snow out of).   The damaged Mason end panel with a tarp over it makes for some shelter from the rain. I will see if I can find a small dog house at Tractor Supply Company for better shelter.   

Time start to finish for both parts of the project, about 3 hours.   But the pups now have a nice safe place to hang out in the yard.