Friday, July 15, 2011

The Dog Shower a gift to Fido

The dog shower is one of the fastest growing trends in custom homes lately. Every client that I’m building a home for that has a dog is having one of these installed.
A dog shower is exactly what it sounds like, it’s a shower built to wash dogs. This is especially important for people that live near the water or have a pond. The shower is usually placed in the garage to minimize the mess. Heated or not it doesn’t matter, if the garage isn’t heated then the shower needs a shut off in the house to drain and winterize it to prevent freezing of the water pipes. A shower can be as simply as hot and cold water pipes connected to a faucet with a hand shower and a drain installed in the garage floor to take away the water. Or you can have a fully enclosed dog shower with a glass door; usually the doors are only a couple of feet high so that the owner can stand on the outside and wash the dog on the inside. You can use durable tile that has lots of grip so that Fido doesn’t slip and hurt itself.  The short door also allows you to dry the dog off before it walks across the floor.
So now you have a place to wash the dog and a place to keep all the dog shampoo, flee and tic treatments instead of in your washrooms.
The dog shower serves as much more than just a dog shower, it makes for a great place to wash off your muddy boots and shoes. This gives you a place to leave them while they dry as well.
Gardening tools and outdoor items can be easily washed in warm water and left to dry with little clean up required.
One of the biggest side benefit to a dog shower is that can be used to clean off little children that found that wonderful mud puddle. So no more making the child strip at the front door and having them walk through the whole house to the closest shower or bathtub, everything is done before they enter the main living area.
There are a few other things that are growing trends in new houses that deal with pets.
Instead of having cages that you have to move around and fold up when company comes, have custom made cages that are built into pieces of furniture. So in the top of a large cabinet in the mud room you have storage for all your hats and gloves, but in the bottom you have one or two cages so that the dogs can be put out of the way where they wouldn’t bother anyone and a place that the dogs will feel comfortable and safe.
Doggy doors that lead into the garage allow the dog to come in out of the weather without the homeowner having to run out and retrieve the dog. This gives the dog freedom to move around and allows the homeowner to lock the door when they are away so that nothing else comes in.
If your dog spends a lot of time on tile floors, especially in the same room all the time, a great thing to do is to install heat cables underneath the tile. This keeps the tile warm all year round and will help the dog when it gets older to keep its hips healthy.
So when you’re thinking about, or designing your new custom home remember Fido, he’s part of the family too. These simple things can save you a lot of work and hardship in the future.
If you need a dog shower designed, feel free to contact me at robabbott@villagebuilders.ca or visit our website at www.villagebuilders.ca
Rob Abbott
Operations Manager
Village Builders Inc.

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