Hi All, could you please tell me which breeds of dog could partially live happily outside in a kennel, say during school hours, (but with coming in to the house to play with children, etc) and sleeping indoors at night?

I wouold say any breed with a double coat would be fine, and even those with short or thin coats in a heated kennel.

The question really is whether it would be sensible to kennel a dog, and this depends on how yourproperty is situat4ed with regards to neighbours. If the dog is kenneled it may be dsisturbed by callers, neighbours in their garden, and in your absense bark and cause a nuisance.

Why would you want to kennel the dog rather than have it indoors with you?  If it is because there will be no-one at home for the greater part of the day then I would discourage this paln a s alonely dog will almost invariably bark and howl.

Dogs are social creatures and it is totally against their nature to spend long periods alone, so they will to a lesser or greater degree (depending on breed and individual, as wll as it's training) suffer anxiety at being seperated from their pack, be it human or canine.

My spaniels have a kennel and run outside and spend time out there when we are not at home.  They sleep there also and it would be perfectly OK for lots of breeds of dog to sleep outside providing they have dry, draughtproof sleeping quarters.  I do have a heat lamp for very cold and frosty nights but they prefer to keep away from it.  On cold nights its me that had the problem with them being out and certainly not them.  They get far too hot in the house.

In my own experience labradors, springers and working cockers will all happily adapt to kennel life.

I find that for gundog training, those that live in kennels adapt to the training regime better than those that live in the house. However, a dog left in a kennel will often be very 'bouncy' when it comes out, and thus suit a slightly more experienced handler.

My own dogs are 'kennel dogs that come into the house' rather than 'house dogs that are put in kennels'. More problems with barking etc seem to occur with the latter type.