Dogs in Cold House

Question
Hi Kristin,

This weekend here in St Louis, an ice storm knocked out the electricity in my
house for nearly 4 days. It was very cold, in the single digits some nights, and
the inside of my house got down to the mid 30's. I was so worried about my
dogs - I have a 9 year old black lab, a 6 year old Malamute and a 3 year old
white shepherd. I stayed in the house the first 1 and a half nights with them,
but by the third night I couldn't stand the cold anymore. I called the Humane
Society and they said they were not providing emergency shelter for pets in
houses without power (they began doing so the day after my power was
restored). I called around some other "helpful" agencies and could find
nowhere that I could take my dogs for relief from the freezing cold house. I
was told to lie blankets on the floor for my dogs to lie on, which I did, and I
was also told that the dogs would be ok as long as the temperature stayed
above 40. Like I said, though, it got down to around 34-36 degrees in my
house and I was so worried about my dogs. My husband and children and I
ended up staying in a hotel, but there was absolutely nowhere I could take my
dogs.

My question is, given the unreliability of the power company where I live (this
isn't the first prolonged outage we've had in recent years), what can I do to
keep my dogs safe in the house should we be without heat again? I made sure
they had plenty of food, water and blankets, and I checked on them regularly,
but still, I could tell they were cold as they were shivering at times. It broke
my heart not to be able to help them. Is there anything more I can do if this
happens again, and how worried should I be about them in temperatures as
low as they were?

Thanks,
Mary Ann

Answer
Hi Mary Ann,

I can understand your desire to keep your dogs warm, should you loose power again. Luckily your dogs are breeds with nice warm coats. With warm blankets to "hunker down" in, they probably weren't as cold as you think they were.

A good place to search would be any sporting good companies that sell supplies for hunting dogs. There are insulated thermal vests made especially for dogs. If not that, just having a warm dog sweater can be a big help in keeping warm. Polar Fleece in particular, is a great material too look for in a dog sweater.

Fill an empty soda bottle with hot water (if you have hot water during the power outage). You can wrap the hot water bottle in a towel, and place it in the blankets your dogs will be sleeping on. Camping supply stores sell chemical heat packs which are usually good for several hours of heat. You can wrap them in a towel or pillow case (if you think your dogs might chew on them) and leave them in your dog's sleeping area.

Of course, the best thing is to take your dogs with you if you must go to a motel. Here are a couple of websites for motels that are "pet friendly":

http://www.choicehotels.com/ires/en-US/html/PetFriendly?promo=gg517&kw=ggc517

http://www.dogfriendly.com/server/travel/uscities/guides/us/cities/usonlinecityM...

I hope I've been a help! With any luck you won't loose power again anytime soon.

Best of luck,
Patti