Garden Dogwalk

For this design I decided to make the trestles from timber. Mine taper inwards towards the top. The legs are made from 50mm X 75mm timber and the cross pieces are made from bits that I had handy. The trestle legs are hinged at the top using strap hinges.

When the dogwalk is painted and it's ready to set up I'll adjust the height of the trestles so that the whole thing is about 28 to 30" high. I can then use chain to string between the legs of each the trestles so that they open up to exactly the right width.

If you don't want to go to the trouble of making trestles you can buy builders trestles or get a pair of saw horses from somewhere like B & Q or Homebase. I wanted mine to be fairly heavy as we live in a windy county where normal equipment can get blown over.

For the top of the dogwalk and the ramps I bought two sheets of 4' X 2' 19mm exterior ply. I asked the DIY man to cut these sheets into 12" wide strips so that I had four bits of ply measuring 4' X 1'. The man was very nice about it considering it was Sunday afternoon and he wanted to pack up and go home and he didn't have a second sheet of the 4' X 2'. This meant he had to cut up a whole enormous sheet. I digress.

The ramps are 6 feet long and the top of the dogwalk is four feet long. This meant attaching two pieces of ply to frames made up from 25mm X 50mm timber. The slats are just cut from a length of moulding. The top was built on a similar framework and this is shown below.

The ramps and the top are joined together using loose pin hinges. These are strong hinges meant for hanging doors and they have a steel pin that can be withdrawn from the hinge so that it comes apart. This idea is perfect for making dogwalks and I'd love to let the loose pin hinge inventor know how useful he's been. If anyone knows where he or she lives let me know. I digress again. Shown right is one end of the top of the dogwalk. I've used a couple of bolts on each side of each half of the hinge to strengthen the arrangement. The hinges aren't really meant to be jumped on by big hairy dogs.

Below left is a top view of the ramp joined to the top of the dogwalk. I will need to make an insert to fill the gap! To join up the hinges I discarded the steel pins and used a metre of steel rod cut in half. I bent the ends to make handles.

The whole operation has been closely supervised by Jamie and Sasha but they have had a few diversions.

Sasha has been keeping a close watch on activities on the other side of the gate. If she watches just long enough she might catch a passing postman or an unwary cat may venture into the garden. Jamie has been working on an escape tunnel. This is located beside the garden shed and is veering towards the stone hedge at the back of the garden. Did he really think I wouldn't notice the enormous hole that he's dug in the compost heap?

Having made the Dogwalk it then has to painted. This is quite a big job. I used gloss for the trestles, undersides and the sides. The top has to be painted with non slip paint and there are several things you can use for this.

I used gloss undercoat with a bit of blue gloss added to give it some colour. The contacts I did in white. I mixed in a bit of fine sand which I sieved with a fine sieve. If you use the one from the kitchen which is meant for sifting flour it works really well. Mine had to have a good wash afterwards and I didn't tell the OH. Other things you can use are, deck paint coated with anti-slip granules, CooVar Sure Grip paint which is expensive but good, or use non slip yacht or floor paint.

Before I put the dogwalk together I put one of the ramps in the garden to let Sasha and Jamie test it out for grip.


First Sasha has a go and Jamie gets jealous	Then Jamie has a go and Sasha watches to make sure he gets the contact.

Then they both want sweeties for being good dogs	....and finally we musn't forget the most important bit of all. A plentiful supply of tea.