Hi, I'm new to the forum and urgently need some advice. I've recently taken in a street dog which was in a terrible state. Having taken it to the vet I've discovered it's had distemper and is extremely malnourished. It's been on a course of antibiotics and had more injections than I can count, I've been feeding it well with vitamin tablets with each meal. Apparently, the body tremors and tongue hanging will never stop, but other than this I'm told the dog should live a reasonably happy life. So, the advice. I bought a kennel for the dog (a bitch called Marty. Marty because one eye is white / blue, with the other being offset, black / brown, she therefore has Marty Feldman eyes). But, the winters here in Istanbul can get very cold, it's snowing as I speak, and I'm worried that as she's still very weak and thin, with clumps of hair still falling off her, she might become more sick. So I'm thinking of how I can heat the kennel (taking into the house is impossible as my wife suffers from terrible allergic reactions to animal hair). What advice can you give me?

David

bales of hay or straw maybe an option for you with blankets etc, face the kennel away from the open to stop wind coming in, that sort of thing. its a nice thing you have done for this dog, and anything you do now will be an improvement on her former life. if you have any old carpet, put it over the kennel on the outside to help insulate it.

aww maybe straw yes cos it traps heat,, very good what you have done for her!

Sleeptalker looks to have made some good points that should help - sad that the dog cannot be inside - but as you have said there are reasons for this - and I would suspect the dog is far better off now then it was (thanks to you). Also as wel as making sure the kennel has adequate covering on the top also rais if off the gound (on bricks if need be) by a few inches - also could you buy a dog fleece/coat for the dog.
regrds
Sue

Thanks for the advice guys, I hadn't thought about lining the kennel with straw. I might get a fleece for the very cold days and nights. The kennel's already raised off the ground, as it has wooden plinth legs and I've managed to face it into a corner out of the wind. I was thinking of making a catflap type door and seeing if I can line the inside of the kennel with some kind of insulation, or is that going over the top?

Not too much in my opinion but my father built a dog house with two inches of fiberglass insulation and paneling. The dogs house was better insulated than ours was. )

You also want to put something around the outside of the house. You want air under the house but it should be dead air (not moving). Since you aren't making the dog house from scratch like my dad did you might want to put some fiberboard insulation on the inside then about two feet of loose straw as bedding and a layer of straw bails around the outside to keep the wind from getting under the house. Also make sure the dog house is just big enough for the dog to stand up and turn around. Extra space means that much more for the dog's body heat to warm up.

Just a quick update.

All the advice given was great, and taken. I'm very happy to report that Marty is doing very well. She's gone up to 17kg, from 9kg, all her hair has grown back and she's now jumping around and playing (when we found her she could barely stand). She's still weak, and because of having had distemper will always be, but she's thriving on a good diet and having somewhere warm and dry to live. We can't walk her far, proven by the fact that she had a mild heart attack when we tried, so we're keeping the exercise down to a safe level. She's not able to clean herself, as she has no control of her tongue, so we have to give her regular baths, and as she has few teeth food has become a slight problem. She seems happy though and is extremely well natured.

That's it for now. I'll try to post a few photos of her later.

David

awww , what a lucky lady this dog is to have found you

__________________

Thanks for the update David - it's great when peeps come back and let us know how they are getting on!
And i'm a sucker for a happy ending!
Maybe you'll hang around
regards
DT

Thats great news.... well done x