New Dog Yard

Lady and Fenris at play

 In February I decided the time had come. This was the year we created a dog yard. With three dogs, and the little one at 30 lbs., we needed more space for them than the little wooden pen could give. We also needed a better way to let them do their business than having them on cables out the front and back doors. Everyone was tired of tiptoeing through the land mines. From planning to finish, it has taken most of 2025, but it is done!  Leon and I will be visiting the chiropractor next week. :)

I found wire and gates on Facebook Marketplace. Posts and other equipment were purchased at Bluestem and Sutherlands. I walked the space and marked where the fence would run. Ugh. It went through every one of the raised beds in the existing garden. That meant before the dog yard could be built, the garden would have to be moved. We did it. (See the previous post). It took most of our energy for the summer, but we did it.

Joe with the big auger

The plan was to hang the gates off pipes, and to anchor the corners of the pen with 4x4s. In April, my son, Joe, brought his power auger over and dug six post holes for the pipes and posts. He recommended we wait for him to return to help set the post in concrete later. In some ways it is good that he got busy and we got busy, because when we got back to the project in the fall, we learned that the pipes I bought for the gate posts were too short. If we had sunk them in concrete in April we would have had a real mess on our hands.

Leon helping 
Reyes set posts

 My grandson, Reyes, showed up in the fall to help set the first of the posts. He showed Leon and I how to work the concrete around the posts. He got the two 4x4s seated and then we discovered the gate posts were wrong. Since he could not come back to do the rest of the posts, Leon and I studied YouTube videos and ventured into a new skill set. A phone call to Joe helped us understand how to use the gate to position the post holes. I researched the hardware needed to use 4x4s for the gates instead of our too short posts. YES! hardware did exist for using posts. I ordered it from Amazon. 
 

Checking the gate

Leon and I got very good at running lines to keep our posts square and spotting where the holes would be. I like to dig dirt. (It must be the gardener in me.) Leon had the upper body strength to toss those posts around. Together we got the holes Joe had dug cleaned out, reshaped and ready for the posts. Then he worked the concrete while I held everything steady.  

Fen tried to help

No two ways about it, it was now time to stretch wire. Fenris offered to help, but in the end, we used the pickup to stretch wire. Leon created a great stretching tool from 2x4s and canvas straps. A come-along hooked to the pickup did the rest of the work. We stretched the north and the west sections using the pickup. We could not get the truck into place for this east section, so we ended up doing it manually. It isn't as taunt as the oth4r sides, but it only has to hold Fenris, not a Brahma bull. 

The last section of fence

When Joe dug the holes with the power auger, he could not get as close to the house as he would have liked. That left a gap between the post and the house. I hand dug that last post hole and dropped a 4x4 into it one day when Leon was in Topeka.  Two stretcher bars helped keep everything taunt, and then I stretched that last 10 feet of wire. Leon was impressed when he got back to Waverly. 

The dogs say " Thank You."