Habitats Stair Case Dog House with Heater

Comments about Coral Coast|Other Brands Habitats Stair Case Dog House with Heater:

My son (14) and I (female 50ish) had a hard time setting this up... holes didn't match or no holes at all, lousy instructons, no markings on the panels (side A/B or left/right, etc), not enough screws, etc... It took about 3 to 4 hours. I've been setting up furniture (Sauder) for years so I'm real familiar with putting together pre-fab furnishings but this was incredible. The people who construct these things should really be ashamed of themselves... no quality control. On the plus side my son and I had some great bonding time.

My dog is an over weight white Terrier/Chiwawa mix (pound dog) who is about 20lbs with short legs. We purchased the large to keep her bed and water/food bowls. After setting it up a medium would have been better. We live in Hawaii so our weather is pretty much the same all year long and we are keeping it outside. It is plenty roomy to allow her to stretch on her belly as she watches the passerbys in our neighborhood. The problem is she can't use the stairs. The steps are too short and too steep for her to climb to the deck. To get down she just falls down the stairs. In order for her to use the deck; we now have to purchase a ramp. So far she doesn't like to go inside but it's still too soon to tell. The wood is strong enough for her and she's not one given to scratching anything so I know it will hold up structurally.

I'm tossed on whether I would recommend or not... Recommend if you are a handy man/woman who can reconstruct or rebuild the staircase to be user friendly for your pet and have lots of patience and some power tools... if not then I would not recommend. Summary: Recommend with conditions.

Service and delivery comments:

It came quickly! But we paid $115 for shipping.

If you consider that the initial manufactoring was in poor quality then no not in good condition but definitely not the service departments problem; it came in the same condition it left from the warehouse.

Comments about Coral Coast|Other Brands Habitats Stair Case Dog House with Heater:

Pros: Cute look and should be versatile in that our dog could lay on top and see what is going on out in the yard (since she likes to lay up on top of our couch and look out the window when she is inside) or she can get inside to shelter her from the wind/rain and cold (though we haven't tested her on this as we just put the house together (about 4 hours) and tonight will be a test run for the heater since it is supposed to drop into the 30s).

Cons: I thought I was buying a durable doghouse. The wood is very thin and flimsy. The accessory door strips were made for specific doghouses of which this isn't one but we didn't know that until the product arrived. We had to get another 2 pieces of wood in order to make the strips work on this doghouse. One of the stabilizer pieces was broken which turned out to be okay because we felt we needed to add a 2x4 underneath the floor to support our 21 lb dog. I am not totally sure this will even last a year. We are going to have to modify the roof so that we can reach into the doghouse and adjust the thermastat. Based on this experience, I would be leery at buying another pre-made wooden doghouse. I think our best bet would be to make our own. If it turns out my intuition is wrong and this house holds up, I will come back and add that info to my review and modify the score.

Comments about Coral Coast|Other Brands Habitats Stair Case Dog House with Heater:

This house is very cute and good if you need to leave your pups outside for part of the day in cold weather. It was a good price, but it did take about 4 hours to set up, not "20 minutes." There are a lot of parts, and it was difficult to find a good place to install the heater where you could still reach in and adjust the temperature. We decided not to screw on part of the top of the house,so that we could still reach in and change the temperature. All in all, good price for what you get.