How in the heck can these animals handle this cold weather? -I went to S.A. over Saturday nite but left the garage open just in case it got REALLY cold. Well, it did get REALLY cold and I worried about my dogs. Granted they have a garage to get into and a bed and blanket inside the garage...its still just insanely cold to handle (in the 20's!). Man, I felt really bad. Got home yesterday, business as usual for them, barking and playing. No big deal. -Mornings...I let my dogs inside the kitchen to sleep in the early evenings before it gets too chilly. First thing in the morning they are ready at the door, wanting to go out and play in 28 DEGREE weather! I'll check and see if they wanna come back in and they ain't having any of that! They actually wanna stay out there! How do your animals handle the cold weather?? How cold is COLD for dogs?
My animals handle the weather pretty well... but then they're in a tank and have a heater set at around 77-78 degrees F to help them.
Dogs (depending on type, of course) are pretty tough dude. When I lived in Canada, we had some hunting dogs for our customers. They stayed outside in their kennels during weeks of 30-40 below zero every year. Granted, we had hay inside the concrete kennels and then little wooden kennels with hay inside them, so they were somewhat protected from the elements (no wind, etc). Our dogs were full-sized animals though - German shorthairs and black labs. I'd be a little more worried if your dogs were chihuahuas.
We got about 8-10 inches of snow over the weekend. I got home from the store at about 10 pm last night, and the neighbors' golden retriever (Sam) was lying still on their front porch. It was under five degrees, and Sam was lying on trampled-down packed snow. I was wondering the same thing. [EDIT] 28 degrees is freaking summertime
my box turtles outside just dig in and hibernate Maybe I should dig them up one day and make sure they are still ok.....
My ridgebacks seemed to do pretty good at the park the other day where it was 15 degrees and wind gusts of 20 - 25 mph. I, however, was freezing my booty off in sweat pants/shirt with hood. I thought I was gonna get frostbite on my hands. Meanwhile, dogs are running huge circles around park grounds . Surf
Sam was content. The dog just lays there on the snow as if it's 78 and sunny. No wonder the mongrels only live to be about 13 years old
Good. When you said "lying still" it made me wonder. A good friend of mine had a Springer Spaniel die in the cold, but no one really knew why or how, he was either laying down or fewll down and died. We found him one afternoon, lying still in the snow, stiff as a board, just like you said. Sad sad sad......we buried him shortly after we found him. He was a good dog.
