New Digs

Houdini McKenzie was aided in her escape from the kennel attempts by Willy's propensity to pee on the highest object. After 7 years, the kennel dividing gate finally rusted through. The function of the dividing gate was to allow us to keep the dogs in the outside kennel when closed. When open, the dogs have 24/7 access to the house through the dog door. At 7 months old, McK could scale the 7' kennel walls. Thus a roof was added to the kennel. She still managed to climb the rock wall and squeeze through a space between the kennel wall and window. Thus a chain link section was screwed to the roof support and tie-wrapped to the kennel upright. She can climb the rock wall and break the tie-wraps but it takes her quite a bit of time. Thus they are checked and replaced frequently.

McKenzie can open any out-swinging, human door (mouldings and wooden doors have suffered badly from her attempts to open in-swinging doors); our double-click pantry doors; anything in the pantry; and the bear proof, dog food containers. Fortunately she only performs these maneuvers when we are not at home. When she breached the rusted dividing gate last week, we moved it to a place we could jam one edge into the rock wall and tie-wrapped the other to the kennel wall. We could not move it but came home to see all three dogs happily jumping back and forth over the tilted, panel. Time for a new panel.

the culprits and the too well marked gate panel

Since we were replacing the panel, we got a 10' section to eliminate the need for the chain link spacer. Replacing the panel was not easy. The kennel is fixed to the roof to keep the roof from again flying away. We needed to rearrange the kennel panels so there would be a joint for the new panel - no more tie-wraps. The roof had to be raised to get the panels over the 7" rebar posts drilled into the concrete. The very heavy, 12', double pane, glass wall had to be moved away from and then put back against the kennel wall. After a lot of jury rigging to temporarily raise the roof and a truce from ill mannered words, last night, we got the job done.

Cedar inspecting the new digs