Kennel and Crate: Beautiful Custom Dog Kennels for Your Home

In Partnership with Kennel & Crate

Certainly not lacking in style or function, Kennel & Crate craft beautiful handmade dog crates you'll actually want to keep inside your home. Choose from a variety of standard crates or customize your dog’s crate to fit your own style aesthetic. We sat down with a few members of the Kennel & Crate team to ask them about their organization and what makes them unique.

What kind of goods/services does your organization offer to pets/pet owners?

We build custom dog kennels.  These are real pieces of furniture, crafted and finished by hand.  Most of our kennels are wood, but we also offer a more rugged, industrial all steel version.

Our double kennels feature an interior door that can be latched open to create one large den, or latched closed to make two cozy spaces. 

What makes your organization unique? How do you stand out in comparison to similar organizations?

We build everything from scratch.  We have craftspeople that build the kennels from kiln-dried lumber, metal workers that fabricate, weld, and assemble the bars for our kennel doors, the barn door mechanisms, the locking pins, foot rails, and finishers that create our one of a kind stained and painted finishes.  We are proudly a “Made in Oklahoma” company and we build our kennels on my family’s farm. 

What makes this organization a good choice for pet owners? What benefits do they gain by engaging with your organization?

People spend a lot of money on their home design and décor.  We build kennels that complement that décor.  We work directly with our customers to coordinate the size, shape, and finish details to create a kennel that is worthy of their dogs and their home.  We have so many customers that work with professional decorators and designers to create a beautiful home.  After going to that much time, trouble, and expense, it doesn’t make any sense to stick a wire kennel in the corner.

Our kennels are real, hand-crafted furniture.  We integrate kennels into desks, sofa tables, end tables, kitchen islands, media centers, pub tables (pup tables – get it?), sideboards and bookcases.  We’ve even done a dining table.  Our distinctive designs, excellent quality materials, attention to detail and customer service set us apart from our competitors.  I don’t even like to say competitors – we really don’t have any competition.

What are the core values of your organization? How do they influence your business practices (production quality, charitable giving, etc)?  

This truly is a family operation.  We build the kennels on our family farm.  My uncle is my primary partner.  My aunts and cousins go to trade shows with me.  My brother is my California sales rep. My family has been in Stillwater community for generations and we love being a part of the community.  We donate to local events that support animal welfare organizations like the Stillwater Humane Society which we supported through Putts for Pets event sponsorship and the Central Oklahoma Humane Society’s annual fundraising gala by donating a custom kennel for their silent auction.  We are also providing a kennel to a teen in Kansas City who is getting a service dog through SIT Service Dogs.  We built an all-steel kennel for an active law enforcement K-9, too!

We’ve had an OSU (Oklahoma State University) student come take a tour and discuss entrepreneurship as part of a mentoring program.  We hope to have more interactions like that!

We did a nice discount promotion over Veteran’s Day 2018 and had a few veterans take advantage of that.  We will do more promotions like that in 2019.

We take pride in our customer service.  We talk to all of our customers.  Even if we get an order online, we still call and go over details, we ask for pictures of existing furniture so we can make sure we coordinate the finish just right.  We send sketches sometimes when asked for unique items – like a hexagon kennel with a round top.  We will send pictures or even samples to a customer for their review if it’s something tricky or really out of the ordinary. 

We don’t send out an order if it’s not right.  We will completely rebuild a kennel if it’s not right.  Almost all of our in-stock items are items that are great, but not exactly what the customer ordered.  Maybe we made it too short, or the stain didn’t come out as expected.  I’d rather re-do a kennel completely than send it out wrong.

We love it when customers send us pics of their dogs in their kennels and tell us that their dogs love the kennel as much as they do.  We especially love it when we have a customer that will actually come to the shop to pick up their kennel.  It doesn’t happen very often as few of our customers are actually local, but it’s awesome when it does.  We love showing off our little shop!

What’s the best way for pet owners to find out more about your organization?

Visit our website www.kennelandcrate.com or send us an email at office@kennelandcrate.com.