The second of my (possibly) pointless contributions. A mate of mine used the Americanism "In the doghouse" the other night. Apart from wondering quite when the expression arrived over here (vague memories of a Laurel and Hardy film with a title containing the word?), do Americans use 'kennel' at all? As far as I'm aware the "The Kennel Club of Great Britain" does not have a sister organisation called "The Doghouse of the United States"! So apart from weird tendencies to call poor spaniels " Prince Montgomery of Slovenia" (better known as "Fred"), do they have anything in common , namewise?

Yes, very common leftpondwise. In confirmation, Laverne defines it as "A compound where they keep dogs"

We have the term kennel also, but it means more of a business that has commercial boarding for dogs.

Well in the UK it means both- a boarding house for dogs and a small shed for a dog's home. One thing I've never seen is a kennel shaped in the traditional cartoon manner with a peaked roof and a horseshoe shaped door, do they exist only in the movies?

Snoopy sleeps on top of his kennel, so they do exist outside the movies - in cartoons.

My dad, a carpenter, once built a doghouse for the family dog: it looked pretty much how doghouses are portrayed in the movies.

I have often heard the word "kennel" used for an individual doghouse, though it is also used for a commercial boarding business. In pet stores, for example, often the term for a doghouse is "kennel."

Snoopy's kennel? I thought he lived in a Sopwith Camel, not a kennel. And there's the dog poet, Galway Kennel.