How cold is tool cold for an outside dog to be kept outside??

[TechBoyJK]

My roommate has a dog that he "saved" from an old family that had a farm. It was an outside dog.. It's been getting cold out, like 15-20 degrees, and my roommate keeps the dog outside.. We don't have any where inside to keep her, but I'm curious.. The dog seems ok in the cold, she has a well insulated dog house surrounded with lots of hay/straw.. How cold is too cold for a dog? She's some kind of lab mix.

 

[waggy]

depends on the dog.

a good friend of mine keeps her huskie outside all year. the damn thing loves the snow. but her other dogs she keeps in during the winter.

personally i would bring in a lab mix (we have a labradoodle)

 

[BassBomb]

as long as its torx its ok

 

[TechBoyJK]

depends on the dog.

a good friend of mine keeps her huskie outside all year. the damn thing loves the snow. but her other dogs she keeps in during the winter.

personally i would bring in a lab mix (we have a labradoodle)

Part of why he says he doesn't wnat to bring her in, besides the fact that he says she's just fine in the cold and loves the snow (she does love it), is that she's never been an inside dog. We've never let her in, he never let her in when he lived at his last house, and he said the first owners kept her outside all year round.. She's about 7 years old.

He says she's just fine outside and bringing her in the house is a bad idea.. We certainly couldn't leave her in all day short of getting a dog carrier and locking her up in that all day when we are both at work.

 

[edro]

Our 6 month old kitten got out a few days ago.
It was 15°F outside and was at the front door the next morning.
It was as warm as could be.

I remember growing up with an outside dog.
We stacked bales of straw around its house for winter and packed straw inside his house.
We brought him into the garage if it dropped below 10°F or so.

 

[Born2bwire]

We had a lab mix when my folks lived in Chicago. She head out there when it was snowing, curl up on the patio furniture and stay out for hours. She'd be covered in snow but wouldn't want to come inside.

 

[SirStev0]

My dad had/continue to have beagles and they permanently live outside year round. They have always done fine with really cold temperatures. Though I always used to joke that their dog house was better insulated than my room. I can only think of a three times we actually let them sleep in the basement because it was supposed to be in the neg 30's or something. We lived in the mountains of PA so it was pretty cold all winter long. They'd sometimes get physically ill if we let them in the house during the winter because of the huge temperature change.

If the dog has been living outside in the same conditions his whole life he will be fine. Sporting dogs are pretty used to that type of conditions. Just make sure your roommate knows not to wash him at all. Outdoor dogs stay warm by having a thick oil layer on their skin as protection. It is part of the reason beagles tend to smell extremely "dogish". With out that they get cold much faster and their skin gets frostbitten and chapped.

 

[LTC8K6]

Our husky would be buried under the snow. You'd go out in the morning and couldn't see anything, but call her and up she'd pop! She had a warm doghouse, but rarely used it. Preferred to curl up in a little ball.

 

[SearchMaster]

Heh - I bring my dogs into the garage if it's colder than 40F or so, and their dog house has a heat lamp in the winter that keeps it about 10-15 degrees warmer than the outside temp. My sister had a rabbit that was kept in a hutch outdoors and it froze solid one night, and that's always in the back of my mind.

 

[dullard]

If it is a small dog with little fur, take it in.

If it is a big dog with adequate fur, it can probably be outside. Basically if you keep them fairly dry, keep them away from antifreeze and salt from the roads, and give them shelter with straw that you change frequently, you'll do well following one rule. If it is too cold for you to maintain liquid water in its water dish, it is too cold for that dog to be outside. And no, a heated water bowl doesn't get around that rule.

 

[MikeyIs4Dcats]

http://petcare.suite101.com/article.cfm/winter_needs_for_outside_pets