Do you have an outdoor house for your dogs?

Hi all, just a quick question. Do you have outdoor acommodation for your dog/dogs. Be it a kennel, a run or anything?

I'm looking for a bit of advice really. There are odd days & I mean very odd days when the OH & I work the same days, so the dogs can be left for upto 3-31/2 hours at a time.

On occassions like this ideally I would prefer to leave them outside so they are a:together. b:they can toilet when they want & c: arent confined to the kitchen/crate

Any advice appreciated and also any pics you may have for your outdoor homes.

Thanks peeps

Bev x

You mean a kennel and run?

Personally I would be wary of leaving a dog outside unattended, too many "what ifs". Dog theft is on the rise, both for ransom and theft to supply dogs "on demand" to buyers. Neighbours with grudges (if the dogs are loud outside, grudges could start up if you don't have any problems so far) could chuck harmful things into the garden, or even just trouble teenagers (we had a young lad go around killing lots of pet cats and the odd dog in the town next to us for sick thrills). Outside there tends to be more distractions so if they're not noisy when left now, they could become noisy when there's birds or cats sat on the fence, people walking close by, dogs barking nearby, etc. and this could become nuisance noise. If they were to escape the garden, they may be loose for 3 hours before you'd even know so could stray very far, get hit by a car and crawl off injured, etc. Given the breeds you own I would be even more wary - NI's hold the appeal of being good looking, unusual dogs, and GSDs have enough of a reputation without the potential for the dog to be barking at the fence, escaping and scaring people (DDA doesn't just apply in bite cases, fear of being bitten can be argued too), as someone who owns "bad" breeds I think it's our responsibility to give the public the best impression we can, and to do that you need to know where your dog is and what it's doing (to a certain degree!) at all times.
A normal dog can easily hold its bladder for 3.5 hours, I would say if you're wanting to give them more freedom then see if you can give them access to more rooms in the house perhaps. If OH gets stuck on a long day (he's an engineer so often just spends half the day on-call), I pop home at lunch, so the dogs have to cope 3 hours in the morning and 3.5 in the afternoon and they do just fine, they're never absolutely busting for a pee when I get home, they've normally just had a few naps.

Well my dogs manage on MUCH longer than this on their tod ok.

Nope ..
All have access to the garden but never left outside with out someone being here ..

No and my dogs are left for a 6 hour stretch one week out of 4. I work mornings 8.30-1.30 and my husband works shifts. This means that 2 out of every 4 weeks they are not left at all, 1 out of 4 they are left for 4 hours and one out of 4 they are left for 6. When I get home they are never desparate to go out to the garden to toilet and they are 9 and a half and 10 and a half. I walk them just before I leave for work.

Their previous owners had a dog-door for them to go out into their garden but I don't like the idea of this as they are large dogs to have a door for (Springer spaniel size) and it would be bad security and I would worry they might be stolen as they're a rare breed. I also wouldn't want them outside barking to annoy my neighbours as we have a couple of yappy dogs out the back and mine might join in if I wasn't there to stop it.

I have a thermablock built kennel & run, but they are full of garden & dog stuff.

My dogs/cat have a dogflap, but they are never left alone, where I am so are my dogs

To be honest I'd just leave them in the house for 3 - 3 1/2 hours. That amount of time isn't particularly long at all for a dog.

I do have a Kennel outside for my two but only for them to go into if they choose. Once the weather is fine I leave the back door open and they roam in and out and the kennel is there for shade/shelter etc. In warmer weather Ivan prefers to be outside.
They are house dogs and are never left outside alone if I go anywhere.

Personally id just leave them in the house. I wouldnt like to think of my dogs unsupervised in the garden when im out.
3 hours isnt long for a dog, so as long as it goes outside to pee before you leave im sure he'll be absolutly fine til you get home