Dogs of the North The Photo Album The Crates

Kira and Chief have various favourite places where they like to retire to for a snooze or a quick kip. Chief favours the inside of the house more than Kira and will often follow me from room to room. Kira prefers to spend most of her time outside and will regularly come inside to check on me, or rather check that I am still around. I also perform regular checks on the dogs throughout the day (actually about every fifteen minutes). If Chief is not close by, he will be on his PetFuton (Kira doesn't use hers very often), on the deck with Kira, on the tiles in the bathroom, or very rarely downstairs in the run with Kira. Kira's favourite place has always been the run. She loves it down there and treats it like her den. Kira and Chief were never crate-trained as pups but recently I have started getting them used to crates for their trip to Canada. They now like the crates and I often find them in there. I am hoping that the crates should ease their transition to their new home in Ottawa as they will have a place they are familiar with. Also, I plan to put the crates in the runs so that they can go inside if they ever want to seek protection from the cold wind. They will also always have the option of coming inside the house through the dog door. Recently I decided to ditch the wooden crates which were custom-made for Chief and Kira by a dog-shipping company in Sydney. Those crates were not very sturdy at all. I had a lot of trouble sourcing the 700 or Giant size Vari Kennel but finally managed to get hold of them through another dog-shipping company in Sydney. This is what Kira and Chief travelled in when they flew to Canada. A Mighty size PetFuton fits perfectly in these crates. Vari Kennels are plastic crates. They are much tougher than wooden crates and will not splinter and are less like to be destroyed by an anxious dog trying to chew for dear life (although I am not worried about Kira and Chief doing that). Vari Kennels are also approved for airline travel. One problem though is that the 700 size Vari Kennel does not fit in some smaller aircraft. The wide-body aircraft used for international travel are fine but people with 700 Vari Kennels have been refused before for US domestic travel.