Thanks guys. I may try the heat tape, but the element that drops in the water is out of the question. My dogs are kind of destructive of anything that they think don't belong in their kennel.lol I put a swinging door on my older hounds house last winter to break the wind a little and when I got from work that night, he'd chewed the door off the hinges and had it pushed under the gate. I guess he didn't like it.lol