A House fit for a King..on a Paupers Budget

Wow. I've been a very negligent blogger this year. I can't believe it's October and I have only eighteen posts this year. So much for documenting the whole move and settling in process. The leaves have all fallen from the Aspens and Jack Frost is threatening to release his frosty winds and cover the ground with his ice and snow. This posed a problem-what to do with Jasper?

 Jasper has not been a good dog this year (yes Santa Paws are you listening-not a good dog). At the end of June he did a dastardly thing-he killed and ate one of our little call ducks, and mortally wounded Harry the rooster. That event has earned Jasper a lot of time tied on a chain. I don't like to tie up a dog but I will not put the lives of my ducks and chickens at risk to the whims of a dog. He probably started off just playing but playing led to death.

 Fencing Jasper out of the chicken coop is not really an option as jumping into the chicken coop isn't Jasper's only misdoing. He has also taken to jumping our perimeter fence. If he feels like going for a swim, one hop and he's over the fence and off he goes to romp and play in the creek. He also has an accomplice-our tenants pup is infatuated with Jasper and follows him wherever he goes, including over or through the fence.

 Last month they took off and didn't return. We searched high and low but the two dog had vanished. A missing dog here is extremely worrisome. We border thousands of acres of forest land and if they disappeared in there, we would be luck to find them again. Happily, a phone call to animal control found the delinquents -they had run down the busy road behind us for about two miles before being picked up. I bailed them out the next morning, and swore an end to their adventures.

 Hence more chain time for Jasper. I felt bad (even though he earned his sentence). Basically he has to be tied dusk to dawn unless I am there to supervise him. And then there was a matter of shelter? I can't leave a dog tied without shelter. I searched on local buy/sell forums but couldn't find a suitable house for him, so we opted to bite the bullet and build him his own mansion.

 Hubby was up for a week and I put him to work. We scavenged a bunch of scrap wood from piles on our property accomplishing two things; cleaning up eyesores that needed to disappear, and best of all sourced materials to build the frame of the dog house. A trip to the local hardware store proved fruitful, they had a bunch of scrap cedar siding they sold to us for 1/2 price. A few hours and many slivers later-Jaspers doghouse was born:

Framing Starts

Size Check

Using the fine woodworking tools

Supervising

It's taking too long

Setting the house in place...with supervision

The finished product...yes he has a deck!

Cost breakdown:

2x4 lumber-free, scavenged from scraps

Pole skids-found on property

Cedar Siding-$25.00

Cedar roof-$25.00

Misc hardware-about $8.00

Total cost: $58.00!

And just one more thing to add...I've ordered Jasper Christmas lights to adorn his house.