heat lamps?

[Mikka]

IMO, some of the reasoning on this post is flawed.

Yes dogs like any other Godly creatures can survive in the cold given dry and warm shelter. Does it mean that they should not be given heat during cold snap? Dogs must generate more body heat trying to stay warm and often this phenomena can be observed in the form of shivering. To expand that energy in the form of heat dogs use fuel best known as food. No one will make me believe that a dog which has spent the night using energy to stay warm will measure up to a dog that has not. Again IMO.

Secondly, anyone with bush experience in the frosty part of our worlds will agree that during deep freeze the world comes to a crawl in the wild. Animals will move and feed to a minimum during those days. Often, nocturnal animals will be seen during the day at times when the sun is out and temperature is up. Most of their time is spent expanding and conserving energy in their dens/holes, nest etc. As soon as the temperature starts climbing again so does these animals movements.

Unlike wild creatures, our dogs do not have a choice of their use of their time we decide for them and we ask a lot from our dogs in all kind of weather. Mine run a minimum of 3 times a week or 7 or 8 hours per day in all kind of conditions (Trialing Dogs). In my parts winter=deep freeze and most days are spent below 0F. I help them to perform the best they can by providing them with warm shelter, best food etc.

I keep my dogs in a pen on the ground, they live in an insulated 4'x8' dog house accessible to the dogs though an 9"x10" opening equipped with a flap made out of a piece of carpet and by a "person door" for me. I can stand up in the house. Attached to the back of the dog house there are 2 separate "3 dogs" boxes also insulated and accessible from the dog house through 2 openings of (9"x10"). Inside the dog house I keep their water bowl (heated) and a small oil filled heater. The heater is used to keep the temperature inside the DH around 60F. I have no idea what is the temperature inside the DB's.

Again, this is just my opinion on that subject based on my personal observation and experience with dogs in general and bush experience.

Dan

[D.Gross]

I live in NW Indiana, 5 miles south of Lake Michigan and have had beagles for over 60 years. Always had 1 or 2 dogs in a 3/4 " plywood box with 1 inch insulation, sides, bottom and roof with couple of air vents 1/4" holes drilled on east side near roof. Large overhanging roof covered with stainless, and bottom also covered running up sides 4". (Stepson is sheet metal worker.) Box is 3 inches off ground. Entrance to box is on SW corner of box facing south.
I place a divider in box in October about 10 inches from front of box with entrance on west side of box. Makes a little "hallway". Dogs enter box on the east side, make a left turn, go 2 feet and make a right turn into box. Wind doesn't blow into box plus have a piece of carpet I hang on outside entrance. I load up box with straw and cedar chips. Sleeping area is 2'x2' My Sadie dog often sleeps in the "Hallway" for some reason?

I do let dogs in house during day if wife and I are home but about 7:00pm they are both standing at the back door wanting out. I have two female litermates that will be nine years old in July but I have slept them inside this last week. First time EVER !!! They were outside the other night when it was -4 degrees when we were gone. Were fine. I have a screened in porch on back of house that I cover with heavy plastic in the winter with a dog door and a travel crate that they use with a heated water dish in porch.
In the years past all my dogs slept outside. When it was minus ten, in the morning when they'd come out of box, warm as toast.

If we are gone and they get cold they go into pen and in box. I have a chain link fence on three sides of backyard and an 8' wooden fence across back. Pen is attached to wooden fence. If we are gone I just leave gate to pen open. Has always worked well and dogs have been fine in sub- zero temps. I guess I'm getting soft in my old age (75 day before Christmas).

I'd tell the mayor to "kiss off". People are nuts these days' If you listen to the news if you step outside you are going to die!!!
Teach

[Panther Creek]

I have my dogs in separate boxes (they don't kennel well together). The boxes are about 20"x20" about that tall. 1/2 " plywood inside & out with 1 1/2" insulation. Thay also have the spring loaded aluminum doors. It doesn't take them too long to learn how to nose in & out. The boxes are in a carport open to the east but walled off to the north, so they're out of the north & west wind. The dog houses have heat in the the form of the ceramic heat emitters used in reptile cages. They have a guard around them (mounted high on the inside wall) so the dogs can't get too close. And with straw, they stay pretty toasty.
Food & water is important. Make sure they get plenty of calories to help them stay warm. That's their fuel for the fire. Feed them extra.

[Owl Creek]

This is what I've been using the last 8 yrs or so ....I use a 60 watt bulb when it's above 20 degrees and then when it drops below 20 I switch to a 75 watt bulb....I've got them plugged into a thermostat controlled outlet set at 50 degrees....when it gets under 50 the lamps come on and don't shut off until it's warmer than 50. At first I didn't have a thermometer controlled outlet but you'll find in the spring and fall the nights/mornings are in the 30's so you leave your lights on and then mid day it's in the 70s again and it's too hot....thermostat is the only way to go in my opinion.

http://www.homedepot.com/p/Carlon-1-Gan ... 202077382#

I haven't needed any bedding with it, this latest cold snap has been brutal though....20 below zero and windy....I decided to get a couple hound furnaces to put in my boxes....they aren't cheap at $100 a piece but they should last quite awhile and any reviews I've seen on them have been great.

[BCBeagles]

My pups knocked the cover off my heat lamp in my Senecca whelping box, exposed the bulb, then Tyrone(5 month old) ate it....no joke, ate it to the exposed filament.....lol. Glass should clean out his intestinal tract.

He is wired up that is for sure!!!

[D.Gross]

Gotta love a Hound!! Easy to feed: They'll eat anything and survive !!!!
Teach

[warddog]

Folks to update this issue from my personal perspective, we have been through the coldest temps earlier this week down here in southwest Indiana then what we have seen in the past 20 years. I just happen to be much older than that and remember when winters were actually cold for longer periods of time. I have 5 dogs ranging in age from about 3 to 13, all in separate concrete floor kennels with 55 gallon drum houses that have the entrance hole covered with either hinged doors or a flap of heavy carpeting over it on the outside of the kennel run. I normally do NOT put a single thing in them because whatever is put in gets wet and must be removed about as fast as it is put in. In a winter that has normal temperatures that get into the teens and twentys I put absolutely nothing in them but when it gets down as cold as it did I have large burlap bags or gunny sacks as I call them that I put several handfuls of straw in. I can report just as I thought I would that ALL dogs are in great shape and the 13 year old bitch was as fat and sassy in this -40 wind chill temps as she is right now in the +40 temps. Of course I kept water available and fed them hot meals that I had soaked their dry feed with hot water and or bacon grease. They survived without much intervention from man (me) but beings I had them confined and not left in nature to find their own warm dry bed I provided the bare minimum on some straw in a gunny sack in a plastic barrel Which is much more than the sled dogs I have seen in Alaska laying in a hole right out in the snow at minus temperatures.

[Slaux]

There is a big difference between a well cared for dog living outside in an insulated, draft free dog house (no heat needed)
and some idiot who could care less about their dog and keep's it outside on a chain 24/7 with no shelter. I would assume it is probably the latter your well meaning, but overly controlling mayor is referring to. Mention some animal that is being neglected and bleeding hearts jump all over it, however there are millions of children in our country living below poverty level with parents that couldn't raise a gold fish much less a child, yet you don't see any commercials on t.v. showing their desperation....

[Big River Beagles S]

well sais saux I think alot of peoples priorities need a little adjusting, I think most people mean well they just focus themselves on the wrong things