A Second Life for Old Pallets and Redundant Pallet Racking

As you can see from the above pictures, a timber pallet is the perfect thing to keep your dog off the ground if you happen to have some outbuildings or space in the garage.  Espeically with working dogs, the last place you may want them is in the house so this is a fun alternative but also a serious consideration for low budget kennelling.  Last winter our dog was happy at nearly ten degrees below freezing surrounded by straw bedding and straw bales providing over fifteen inches of insulation minimising the space around the animal to keep her warm.  It was extremely effective.  Old pallet racking can be deployed to do the same thing providing a warm backrest for the dog and an upper shelf upon which to store bedding.  It is easy enough to construct a timber platform from old pallets and cover it with straw to provide a very comfortable bed.  If you fix it to the ground it is easy to use cladding materials to provide you with an outdoor shelter as well on a DIY basis.  It takes about fourteen straw bales and requires an area of approximately 2m x 1500mm to construct. 

There are a lot of rumours about straw bales harbouring pests and certainly it is helpful to ensure you are buying your straw from a trusted source but after that modern veterinary applications deal very effectively with the risk of infestations and I have never had any problems with them.  However if you are concerned any soft pet cushion can be used instead of straw and you could still additionally use straw as insulating walls and roof or simply construct plywood around the timber pallet as another low cost alternative.