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DIY: Green Roof Dog “House”

I love the green roof dog houses at Sustainable Pet, but I can’t afford to spend $3000 on a dog house. Instructables comes to the rescue again!

Check out this brilliant Do-It-Yourself Green Roof Veranda (less a house and more of a covered deck.) It has thorough instructions and lots of helpful photos with notes. You can do this! If you use pressure treated lumber, make sure you get a safe version, or use naturally rot-resistant wood like cedar or cypress, or use plastic lumber.

I really like this design! It has a good over-hang so your pup will be well shaded and the floor is well away from the drain holes in the roof, so your pup will stay dry too. The elevated floor will keep your pet cooler and keep them away from bugs. You can easily put a blanket or a pad on the floor to give your dog more cushioned spot to hang out. And the Green Roof Veranda will look great in your garden.

So what’s so cool about green roofs? They:

  • provide thermal and sound insulation
  • reduce rain run-off
  • are aesthetically appealing
  • reduce energy use
  • absorb CO2
  • reduce heat islands

As I said in the post on the green roof dog houses you can buy, the Green Roof Veranda won’t save the planet by itself, but it can start the conversation, it can serve as a small scale trial for a larger green roof, and it can give your dog a comfy place to relax when she’s outside.

Find out a lot more about green roofs at GreenRoofs.org.

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Green Roof Dog House

Now you can buy an eco-friendly dog house for your pup. The Green Roof Dog House (via Inhabitat) from Sustainable Pet won’t save the planet by itself, but it could get the conversation started, be a small scale trial for a larger green roof, or, at the very least, provide a cooler place for your dog to hang out.

I don’t think cats or dogs should just be left outside, but even pets who spend most of their time indoors may need some shelter from the heat or rain when they are outside. A house with a green roof would work great and look nifty too.

The houses are made from cedar, not pressure treated wood, so your pets won’t be exposed to toxic chemicals. They also use zero-VOC paint (no emission of Volatile Organic Compounds), water-proof with beeswax, and the plants for the roof will be customized for the area you live.

So what’s so cool about green roofs? They:

  • provide thermal and sound insulation
  • reduce rain run-off
  • are aesthetically appealing
  • reduce energy use
  • absorb CO2
  • reduce heat islands

Find out a lot more about green roofs at GreenRoofs.org.

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We Like: The Furminator

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It’s that time of year again when we seem to have more fur coming off our pets than staying on them, so I thought I’d run this post again on one of our absolute favorite grooming tools.

The Furminator is great! (Though the name is kind of goofy.) I used to use a shedding rake, but the Furminator gets out so much more fur, it’s amazing. This video gives you an idea of how well it works.

It doesn’t cut hair or damage the top coat in any way. It just really gets the shedding undercoat and hairs. You can see in this slow-motion video that it isn’t cutting the coat.

The “comb” is made of closely spaced, pointed teeth and because they are so closely spaced they don’t hurt the animal’s skin, but are able to get deep into the coat. It’s the v’s formed by the teeth that catch the loose fur. You can see them by clicking on the thumbnail.

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Saffron loves it. I don’t use it on her undercarriage where there is much less fur and her skin is visible. And I hold her skin taut where it’s looser, like around her neck. As with any grooming tool, I’m careful around her hips and spine. Sage loves the Furminator too, which means fewer hairballs. It’s hard to believe how much fur it gets out of their coats, which means a lot less fur around the house and filling up vacuum cleaner bags. Raven’s coat lays very close to her skin and she doesn’t like to be groomed with anything. According to The Furminator FAQ, there are some breeds of dogs they don’t recommend using it on:

American Water Spaniel
Bedlington Terrier
Bichon Frise
Chinese Crested
English Setter–depends on the coat
Flat-Coated Retriever
Glen of Imaal Terrier
Havanese
Irish Water Spaniel
Japanese Chin
Komondor
Lhasa Apso–depends on coat
Lowchen
Maltese
Pekingese–depends on coat
Poodle
Portuguese Water Dog
Puli
Saluki
Shih Tzu–depends on coat
Silky Terrier
Soft Coated Wheaten Terrier
Tibetan Spaniel–depends on coat

The Furminator comes in different sizes—I got the Medium. Starting with the Medium and on up, you can get replacement combs—screws hold them in place. It’s hard to imagine needing one though. They come with a guard to protect the comb when not in use. Ours came with samples of Furminator shampoos and conditioners.  They didn’t seem remarkably different from other good shampoos and conditioners (Note: I am not connected to the Furminator company.)

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Optivisor & Novaguard: Two More Alternatives To Elizabethan Collar!

Novaguard, Optivisor, & in background, traditional Elizabethan collar.

I love it when people care for their pets so much they’re not willing to settle for a crappy status quo. Tasi Stampoultzis developed the Optivisor to protect his dog, Billy’s, eye after surgery when it became clear the traditional Elizabethan collar (E collar, lampshade collar, cone collar) was terrible. Elizabethan collars interfere with a pet’s hearing and vision, they make it difficult or impossible to eat or drink, and pets are always running into furniture or walls with them. Stanpoultzis was a contestant on New Inventors and although he didn’t win, I think the Optivisor is a great invention. Don’t miss this video of Billy showing off the Optivisor.

Other alternatives like the Neck’s Best Thing, the BiteNot Collar, and body socks have addressed the need to keep pets from fussing with stitches, bandages, or wounds on their torso, legs, or tail, but so far nothing has addressed keeping a pet from scratching at their face or eyes. The Optivisor and the Novaguard do just that. Cool! It may seem silly to be excited about this, but anyone who has watched their pet suffer from wearing an Elizabethan collar understands.

The Optivisor protects the eyes and the upper part of the face from scratching.

The Novaguard protects the whole face.

Both leave the ears free so the pet can hear, but that also means the ears are not protected, so if your pet is scratching its ears these won’t stop it. (Note: the sizing is for dogs, but I wonder if the smallest size would work for cats.) It looks like they should be available in the U.S., Canada, Australia, and soon New Zealand. But, it’s not clear if you can order them. I’ll see what I can find out and let you know. (Thanks to John, who let me know about the Optivisor.)

Check out these other alternatives to Elizabethan collars:

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