(LIFE WITH PETS) JAPAN/CANADA — What do the space under your stairs and a messy DVD cabinet have in common? Both places can make great pet cubbies. Designers from Japan’s Fauna + Design are equipped to design space-saving and high-tech, animal-centered homes. No one wants to talk about the kennel in the room, so it becomes a cozy bungalow behind a built-in wall with all the perks. Low set windows for bird watching? Sure. Doggy toilet for in-house business? Absolutely. From simple to fancy, designers are starting to make animal needs a priority, and we’re loving it. — Global Animal

What was a cluttered cabinet is now a Basset Hound bed.

Photo Credit: Ko Sasaki.

The “Basset hound house,” by Fauna Plus Design, features right-sized accommodations for a short-legged dog

Ever thought of designing a living room for your pampered puppy? How about a second-level perch or shin-level views for the plus-one member of the family?

“What I don’t understand is why all homes are not built with the ‘whole’ family in mind,” said David Beart, who runs the online magazine Professor’s House and is planning to build a $1 million pet-friendly house from the ground up in Calgary, Canada.

Still in the preplanning stages, Beart’s pet-friendly home in Canada will feature pet-accessible entrances and doorways and low-volatile-organic-compound-containing paints, among other interior and exterior features, he said.

Kobe, Japan-based Fauna Plus Design makes dogs an explicit part of their home design. The firm’s dog-friendly design approach is about aesthetics as much as it is practicalities, said an assistant to Keiji Hirose, lead architect at Fauna Plus Design. “One day (Keiji Hirose) realized that it’s a challenge for many pet owners to keep their homes beautiful, so he started to design houses based on animal behavior,” said the assistant.

Part of the dog-friendly home design perspective at Fauna Plus Design, said the assistant, deals with trying to maximize limited space.

For example, the firm designed a remodel of a small Osaka home to fit a large Labrador retriever by placing a children’s playroom on top of an indoor kennel. The design also placed windows that provided sightlines from the kennel into the living room and kitchen of the home.

For another project in Yokohama, Fauna Plus Design placed a waterproof indoor kennel for two dachshund dogs below a mezzanine study room.

Few houses can boast of having a toilet made specifically for a dog.

Photo Credit: Fauna + Design

In a remodeled Kobe, Japan, apartment, the firm installed a special ventilation system to facilitate hair removal and odor-absorbing materials in a cabinet-turned-kennel for a basset hound.

Another Japanese designer, FORM/Kouichi Kimura Architects, drafted a dog-centered design that features an under-house dog space, accessed from the backyard by a sliding glass door, with windows that peek into the interior of the home.

There’s no doubt that dogs are on Americans’ minds — just under half of American households have a dog, according to the American Pet Products Association (APPA) — however, home designers in America are behind the dog-friendly design curve.