At some point during our travels this summer, I became increasingly irritated with the cooling setup I had thrown together for our intermediate RTK kennels. It was a setup you could see at any local agility event. A Ryobi Fan up against the kennel door “attached” by a custom-made biothane “hanger”. While it did a fine job keeping airflow on the dogs, none of my girls enjoyed having such a strong wind constantly pushed in their faces. The fans are rather bulky, so in a small or mid-sized SUV, it can make opening, closing, and locking the kennel doors a bit of a struggle. The breaking point for me was when my biothane hanger snapped. I will continue to carry the Ryobi fans with me. They provide an additional means to keep the entire crate area of the vehicle cooler overall, while having something easily portable if needed away from the vehicle.

I had seen some very nice custom fan setups on ETSY as well as a few from kennel manufacturers. These all were way more money than I was looking to invest, so I set out to do it myself. Outside of the time spent wandering around a home improvement store, each fan cost me a total of $34.94, including taxes. The fans are designed for cooling electronics and offer more than enough air-flow for my intended use. Sabine & Sypha are my service dogs, so they are constantly with me, and I just want them to be as comfortable as possible. We’re still dealing with technology, so always be mindful of whatever environment your dogs are in, as mechanical parts can fail. With that out of the way, onto the good stuff…