As seen from the road, this is the main house and puppy barn with pens. We've cleared the old fence line out and made it more accessible and open. In the spring and summer it'll be lovely.

We've poured cement around our old kennel barn. We use this building to house our rescues and retirees until they go to their foever homes. Each run is at least a 10x10 chain link fenced enclosure gated to another run. Most of the runs have doggie door access to the barn into a 6x6 box stall. The runs that do not open into the barns have doghouses. In the summer months we provide small wading pools (cleaned and refilled weekly) for the dogs comfort & cooling in the heat.

This setup allows us to use one side for rescues and retirees, and the other for boarders, if necessary, just by adding fence panels to increase/decrease the number of available runs.

We've gotten the fences up around all the buildings now and the pen dividers mostly up. At the puppy building, we have 6 puppy/breeding pens (with capacity for up to 2 additional pens if needed). A grassy area also encloses the back door of the house so that any dogs inside the house for whelping or medical care can be allowed exercise without causing problems with their housetraining.

At the new Kennel building, we have 6 pens set up now and will be adding 5 more in more over the next 2 months. We will also be insulating the interior of the building, adding stalls and a loft (for storage) and doggie doors into each exercise run so that each dog will be able to have indoor/outdoor access to the kennel building.  Grand plans, but on our to-do list for this summer!

Inside the rescue barn there are 8 stalls which are roomy and cleaned daily. At this time, we have the two rear stall blocked off to outside access because the back 4 runs are made into one HUGE exercise pen for our Rottweiller Guard dog and his buddies.

Each of our dogs is "buddied" with another dog, usually a sibling or similar age if available. Noone wants to be alone, and dogs are meant to have friends. Our volunteers and family members spend as much time with these precious babies as possible. 

Even on a dreary fall day, the front yard of the old house is lovely and wide open. We are so lucky in our little slice of heaven.

Our long driveway goes between the two houses straight back to the new pad for the soon to be built new kennel building. The rescue barn is off to the left. We have an amazing piece of property here. This picture was taken Nov 1, 2009, when clearing of the property was barely begun.

This is the view from my front yard of the over 2 acres we've had cleared for the construction/additions. Am I a lucky woman or what? The newly cleared area has much improved drainage so that my front yard isn't the former swamp it used to be. Ahhhh! Life is good and grand!

We still have fence panels to add and the interior of the new building to finish out with the loft and stalls and doggie doors, BUT we're getting there and every day we're a little closer to the finished program.

Our Dachshund Farm will be the greatest HAVEN for Dachshunds in the South, if not the World!

This is what we started with when we first opened up as just a small kennel with 2 dachshunds that rescued dogs of all kinds. We've sure made a lot of changes since then.  It was raw stuff. I didn't expect to be a big operation when I started.

In November, 2009, we cleared over 2 acres of our property and poured cement around the rescue barn, the puppy building, and pourd a pad for a new kennel building. We got the new kennel building up as well just before the weather turned wicked cold but then we had to stop work for two reasons:

1) we had a full week of single digit weather and 6 (count them 6) inches of snow & ice  and

2) I had to have the first of two major back surgeries.

We plan to get the rest of the work done ASAP. Fencing, interior of the new building and landscaping are on the list!