Winter on it's way

I have recently spent some time and money changing the shutters in the kennels for lighter weight ones so easier to open and close. This is important as when we do last checking and shut down at 10pm ish it needs to be quick and easy. If it is cold we also flick their under floor heating on at that point too. 

With winter on it's way and being rural we can have some serious minus degrees. I do consider our insulation but having the heating in every dog unit does help keep the water pipes freezing.

Our next project is to establish some more dog runs. We do already have 15 but as we have a stict policy as to who can go out with who and we don't take risks, you can never have too many also by having lots we can have a lot of dogs out, at the same time but safely separated which is important to us at Dogs Paws Stenson

We do have quite a few bookings for 2019 already as people clearly don't want to risk not getting either a dog or cat unit, enabling us to care for their pets whilst they are away on holiday

That is not our car Danni :)

Our senior pest control officer - Danni - is so cheeky as she jumped into someone else's car. 

She thinks she rules the roost and she probably does. She is phased by nothing and no one, not even the largest of dogs which may bark at her, she just smacks them.

She does a great job at keeping the "pests" under control but she and her assistant Missy do insist on bringing us all the dead bodies 

Keeping cool

I am so very pleased we have built the kennels as we have with a cool granite floor and roof from front to back as with the weather the way it is dogs can easily die from heat exhaustion but we are COOL

The self filling water dispensers are "worth their weight in gold" too as I need never worry about dehydration as the dogs always have water and cannot knock the bowls over

Some of our runs have trees for shade and we have erected a wooden fence to create additional shade but at afternoon let out we are very careful how long the dogs are our in the sunshine for, especially the black/chocolate.

We do sometimes put the hose on them and they love it, those who don't stand back but those who do jump, bite and play in the water. We have a couple of trays of water in the play pens too for them to splash and cool off in.

We have had many lovely dogs boarding with us and I thank their owners for continuing to support us.
I have met some very "tricky" dogs with quite tricky owners but I'm afraid they aren't welcome at Dogs Paws

A challenging winter

The boarding dogs and cats have all been warm enough as have their own heating in their own unit.

The self filling water dispensers have proved a little more challenging with the very low temperatures as the pipes froze and then popped apart on de frosting which surprised me as I thought the under floor heating would help through the night. I have he'd to resort to the "old fashioned" way of buckets to fill the water pots but repairs will soon be made and the automatic system in full swing yet again.

No real plans for this year in terms of building but improving what we have already. One job is double fencing all the runs, that way the dogs in neighbouring runs cannot get to each other, even if they wanted to.

We do enjoy what we do even in this inclement weather as the animals always make us smile