OK we do not have the crews, budgets, or network TV backers of the big home make-over shows. But this weekend Dan and I went at it with an effort that would make an HGTV program directer turn their head.
Flattening a summers worth of digging damage in the dog yard. (BedBug & Cricket camping in front)
This was the final part of the big dog yard project we began this fall, you read about in Progress and Paying it Forward (where you can also see more photos of the yard being leveled). Before the snow fell we made sure the dog yard was leveled for winter, filling in holes and cleaning up.
Then this weekend Dan and I single handily made 30 brand new dog houses (a record for us). Took every house out of the yard and either A) refurbished it, making sure it was totally draft free, sturdy, and had a clean floor/inside, or B) hauled it to the burn pile. By the time we were done every Dew Claw dog had a skookum dog house with fresh straw in redone yard. Like most projects it took longer then we had hoped, and the yard was in total disarray while we moved everything around. The dogs, however, didn’t even seem the least concerned when I started taking houses out of the yard or the machine started moving things around. It was a beautiful sunny weekend, and they enjoyed the excitement and attention.
New houses all lined up in the dog yard.
Today is Monday, and all the houses are all neatly lined up and when we got done feeding dinner tonight a number of the kids hopped up on their new houses for a nice after dinner howl before curling up inside on fresh straw. The satisfying result of a weekends labor. I know this perfect illusion will not last. Some of the houses that went to the burn pile were only a year old! Dogs are hard on houses, the chew on them, jump on them, get mud on them, guys mark them… you get the idea. By waiting till things were frozen we can keep the houses cleaner all winter. But there is not much to be done about preventing the inevitable. We fill & flatten, they dig. We trim and build, they destroy. I wish everyone who was able to visit us this summer could come back right now and see the yard as it is today. And that everyone who will be out to visit next summer will remember that for one brief shining moment things looked like this. For us, today was a good day, just LOVE being able to do something awesome for the Dew Claw Dogs. But I do not kid myself; I go to bed with a 50% chance someone will chew a house tonight.
Yup ~ just another wonderful day in a life lived with dogs. They overlook our quirky human idiosyncrasies, and we love them for being dogs.
Some photos from the Epic Dog House weekend~
Starting to cut dog house pieces.
Putting the walls together.
The finished houses are stacking up.
Ready to be moved to the dog yard.
In with the new…
…much easier this way!
Out with the old.
Girls (and neutered boys) side of the yard.
Boys (and spayed girls) side of the yard.
Chase-um (inside) and MK (on top) enjoying the new houses.
