I don’t think this would go over well in Texas. You might end up with critters, spiders, snakes and god knows what else in there. Also who keeps their dogs outdoors?
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I agree that it needs to provide a method for dealing with things like water, or the after-effects of an ill pet without having to use a shop vac (which most people don’t own, anyway).
I think the best cleaning solution would be if Dogden provided a close-fitting shell that exactly fits the lower portion of this. You would dig the hole, bury the shell, and just push the rest of the Dogden down into it. Whenever it needed cleaning/dumping/whatever, you could simply lift out the main part of the den and deal with it.The shell would have drainage holes to prevent water accumulation in it.
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Maybe dig a hole and line it with bricks, then set the Dogden inside of that? If you need to clean it you can just lift it up and hose it out.
IMHO the entrance doesn’t have enough overhang to prevent water accumulation when the rains hit. Your Dogden is going to get soggy. Maybe that’s why the people in the pictures fill it with wood chips?
I love the ‘simple installation’, then quickly skipping over the solid day of digging a hole.
Around here the water wouldn’t get blown in, it would flood in easily over that tiny lip.
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The only problem I see there is that unless you have mad bricklaying skills, you’ll have a squarish hole, and the air gap between the bricks and the den will kill the insulating advantage of the thing. it’d be a cinch for the Dogden folks to just mold a slightly larger version of the lower shell, and sell it as a unit. (NOTE: now that I’m looking at it, it tapers toward the top. To make this work, they’d need a straight-walled section on the bottom).
And I totally agree about the overhang. It’s gonna get wet in there.
" The History of Scotch Whisky, Uisge Beatha
by Ben Johnson
No visit to Scotland would be complete without sampling a ‘wee dram’ of uisge beatha or ‘the water of life’ …the name given by the ancient Celts to the fiery amber nectar we now call Scotch whisky."
That puts a layer of air between the plastic walls of the doghouse and the ground, reducing the insulating effect.
I think this really is most useful for summer weather in climates where you aren’t going to get rain/flood water driving into the doorway. Despite the marketing blurbs, in winter your dog will probably much rather be enjoying the same central heating the humans are using. And it is really only for those people who tie their pets up outside for many hours a day. We never owned a dog that we wanted to exile from our home and our company, but other people have other customs.
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Having been involved in product development for palm-sized gadgets where the injection mold tooling runs into the tens of thousands of dollars, I can only imagine what it would cost for something of that size. Even if it only comfortably serves a good weather market like California, it’s a neatidea and I like the fact that they take dogs’ natural tendencies into account.
All I have in my condo is a concrete slab patio so I won’t be able to test it out for Margot the toy poodle but I still think it’s worth a chance. There is a lot of risk to bring your idea into meatspace and ask people to exchange money for it. I wish them all the best and I hope that the success stories shine brighter than the criticisms.
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We all live in our DogeDen. I make mortgage payments on it every month.
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People whose dogs smell like they love in a hole in there ground? Also: dogfarts plus plastic box? Nasty.
Given his recent fondness for tupperware lids, my dog would eat the hell out of that house.
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Most people seriously underestimate the pressure that that dirt puts on buried structures. I would predict that without reinforcing of some kind, the bricks would shift inward enough (.5-1cm) that you couldn’t pull it out.
Do you know who also had a house with a basement?
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It depends on the type of soil and how deep this structure goes. Soil becomes more unstable beyond depths of 5-7ft and i doubt this is deep enough to expect a catastrophic collapse. If need be it can likely be reinforced better with thick wood beams than with brick.
Edit: still think this dog shelter concept is silly though, i certainly would not go through the trouble.
Technically air is a better insulator. There is a reason that common insulation materials (fiberglass, foam, down) consist mostly of air. Dirt is, however a good heat sink. There is only enough energy from the sun beating down to heat the top few inches before it goes down and the heat starts radiating away. So even a short distance underground, you suppress the diurnal change in temperature. It is cooler during the day and warmer at night. If you go down far enough, seasonal variation is also suppressed. So in a temperate environment, the earth never freezes, or if you are in the arctic, it never melts (permafrost).
It takes you a day to dig a hole?
I’d expect theres not a lot of overlap in the Venn diagram of people who keep their dogs outside and people willing to spend over $100 on a plastic doghouse.
AKA:
The Snake Pit
The Nope Rope Dog Feeding Kit.
The Pupper Pool
I want to know when the larger models will be available. AirBnB here I come!
It is fascinating to me that ■■■■■ (rhymes with hoist) is censored but damp seems to be fine.
