Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Suggestions requested for keeping little old dog warm.

I've posted before on account of there's a timber wolf or coyote masquerading as a 16yo mini-wiener dog on our porch.

This was my BIL's dog until they moved and became unable to keep it. Up until coming here three years back she had lived her whole life as an outside dog in the country, sleeping on cold nights under a blanket next to their house. In her prime she used to kill rats and such and still bears the scars, now she's just an ancient dog, nearly blind and deaf, hardly any teeth left, who keeps on ticking year after year. She doesn't leave the yard but if she becomes aware of my approach she will take off running, such as she can. Not skittish, just wild.

She ain't at all housebroke and in the house picks fights with my heelers.

She spends most of her time sleeping under a light blanket in her crate, I keep her water topped up and feed her every night. In view of her dental issues I soften the food up with milk, seen here with added grated cheese

Here's the problem; most of the time the issue down here is heat, for that I set up a floor fan blowing a steady breeze into the crate and on hot days she'll just crash out on top of her blankets, the breeze seems to make it tougher for skeeters to get to her too.

Down to freezing for the first time tonight, we might actually get a winter this year. To get under blankets the dog noses its way and tosses the blanket up with her head, this only works with the loft of light sleeping bags or quilts, serious blankets like that old wool blanket in the pics are too heavy and too flat in profile for her to get her nose under.

The wool blanket she sleeps on.



...and the light blanket in place, she throw it out like that herself from underneath. Its weighted in back so she can't throw it all out



The crate is covered and it is well-sheltered from the wind,so wind chill isn't an issue.

Right now the source of heat is a reptile hot hock under the blanket. This gets just slightly warm to the touch, perfect for creating a slightly warm spot she can curl up on or next to (ya I know, the manufacturers expressly warn against such uses). But the light blankets that are the only ones she can get under don't insulate on top of her as well as I would like.

On the plus side, when I checked her tonight (37F) under her blanket she wasn't shivering, ie not cold, but I dunno if this would still be true if it dropped down into the 20's for a prolonged period of time.

Looking for suggestions I haven't thought of. Heat lamps are a possibility but they do get hot, and its possible she could throw up a blanket against it. I looked at electric blankets but they all have timers, 3hrs or 10hrs. I am often gone for longer than that.

Prob'ly the best option would be some sort of serious heating pad to lay underneath that I could turn on in the coldest weather, I just can't find anything like that in the local stores.

Bringing her inside in a cage is an obvious suggestion, but there already three other dogs indoors in cold weather, having her outside is just easier on me, and her.

Anybody got any ideas?

Tks,

Birdwatcher