If you clicked on this article you may be wondering what’s up with that? Your dog pen really isn’t as big as you think it is in terms of living space. Just ask your dog. Take your house or apartment your living in right now. Do you consider your bathroom part of your living space? The blue print does, but how much living do you do in a bathroom? For me it is the least place I spend my time as I don’t lounge around in my bathroom and you probably don’t either.
Dogs feel the same way as we do. They have no desire to hang out in a bathroom. No matter the size of your dog pen, big or small it has a bathroom area. Your dog picks out a spot in the pen to do all it’s business. If you don’t keep it clean it will eventually pick out another spot until the whole pen is a bathroom. Each dog is different on how big a space it considers the bathroom but keep that in mind when you build or buy a dog pen. Common dog pen sizes are 8×10 and 10×10. That is 80 to 100 square feet. Add a dog house and you take out 4 to 6 square feet. Then your feeding and watering area will take up another 3 to 4 square feet. If your dog uses one corner of the pen opposite of it’s sleeping quarters, which could take up 10 to 14 square feet your dog doesn’t have that much room left for playing and living. Your looking at anywhere from 50 to 55 square foot left. That is about half the pen give or take depending on the size of your dog. That is for one dog.
What if you add another dog? That would amount to about 25 square foot per dog. If you have a small dog that would be ok but if you have medium to large dogs that would be bad. If your dog stays out all day and just goes up at night that would be ok, but if it spends most of it’s time in the pen then your pen could be way to small depending on the size or number of dogs. These are some things to consider before you build or buy your dog pen.
