"Little spot" -- you're thinking about a pen/dog run? It doesn't need to be right next to the house. If it's important that the dogs be able to go in and out on their own, I'd have the fenced area located so the dog door is on the garage. Good luck!

Do you want the dogs on the porch? Then I would fence in the brown lines, so they can access the porch and back of the house, but add a gate so you can move from back porch to side porch.

If you want to access this area from the garage, move left to the green line. Hopefully this gives you some possibilities :)

Also, just a quick idea....if you want easier access from master bedroom to laundry and porch, without going through main living areas.

are you opposed to electric fencing? we have used the wireless one when we had a short-term rental in the country, it worked well. our dog never got shocked, we did the training to keep her away from the perimeter and she is very responsive to training. We have family who actually installed an electric fence inside the house and outside when they built. It ran in the house so that the dogs could be in the kitchen/garage/outside but not cross to the living room/bedrooms. That was over 10 years ago and they are still very happy with that solution. They live in country near highway and have a breed that loves to chase and is not easily restrained with traditional fence. I would think you could run it under the porch and then to block off the area you want. This solution really depends on your dog breed and where you stand on this type of fencing method, but might be something to consider if a traditional fence doesn't work well for you.

Farm- Good idea! I've thought about something like that for our property....but we have neighbor dogs that wouldn't be slowed down by the electric fence.