Protect Furry Friends From Winter Weather
Although they are equipped with fur coats, dogs and other animals can still suffer from frostbite, exposure, and dehydration when water sources freeze. Cold temperatures mean extra hardship for “backyard” dogs, who often go without adequate food, water, shelter, or medical care. When the temperatures nosedive and you start piling on the layers, it’s also important to remember your wild neighbors.
• Take animals inside. Puppies and kittens, elderly animals, small animals, and dogs with short hair, including pointers, beagles, pit bulls, Rottweilers, and Dobermans, are particularly susceptible to the elements. Short-haired animals will also benefit from warm sweaters or coats.
• Don’t allow your cat or dog to roam freely outdoors. In cold weather, cats sometimes climb under the hoods of cars to be near warm engines and are badly injured or killed when the car is started. (To help prevent this, bang loudly on the hood of your car before starting the engine.) Animals can also become disoriented when there is snow or ice on the ground.
• Increase animals’ food rations in cold weather. In cold weather, animals burn more calories to keep warm. Also, be sure that animals are free of internal parasites, which can rob them of vital nutrients.
• Keep an eye out for strays. Take unidentified animals inside until you can find their guardians, or take them to an animal shelter. If strays are wild or unapproachable, provide food, water, and shelter (stray cats will appreciate a small doghouse filled with warm bedding), and call your local humane society for assistance in trapping them and getting them indoors.
• Clean off your dogs’ or cats’ legs, feet, and stomachs after they come in from the snow. Salt and other chemicals can make animals sick if they are ingested while the animals are cleaning themselves.
• When you see dogs left outdoors, provide them with proper shelter. Doghouses should be made of wood (metal is a poor insulator) and positioned in a sunny location during cold weather. Raise the house several inches off the ground, and put a flap over the door to keep out cold drafts. Use straw for bedding (rugs and blankets can get wet and freeze).
• Provide a source of water for wildlife, who may have a difficult time finding drinking water during winter months. Break the ice at least twice a day.
• Buy nontoxic antifreeze made with propylene glycol instead of ethylene glycol, which can kill animals even in small doses. Safe brands include Sierra and Prestone Lowtox. Animals are attracted to antifreeze for its sweetness, so clean up spills quickly, and buy brands with the bittering agent denatonium benzoate.
• Give wildlife a boost. While it’s best to provide natural sources of food and shelter for birds by planting flowers and trees that produce seeds and berries, birds may need an extra boost during the winter, when they are burning extra calories to keep warm. Use a blend of seeds that includes oiled sunflower seeds, which are high in calories. Remember to stop the feeding when the weather warms up. An artificial food source causes wild animals to congregate in unnaturally large numbers in areas where they may be welcomed by some, but not others, and it can also make them easy targets for predators. Eventually, they may lose their ability to forage for food on their own entirely.
• If you venture out to feed the ducks at a nearby pond or the gulls at the beach, do not feed them bread or corn. These foods don’t have enough nutritional value for wintertime eating. The best thing to feed ducks and gulls during the winter is dry dog or cat food. The birds love it, and the fat in it will help them stay warm as well as replenishing the water-repellent oil in their feathers.
January 21st, 2009 at 3:44 pm
Good tips! I am always on the lookout for dogs that need warm straw in the winter. You can usually get straw from feed supply stores or sometimes in the paper they list it as a for sale item. I try to keep a couple bales in my shed all wrapped and sealed in plastic, then I take it over to dogs that need it for their dog houses.
January 22nd, 2009 at 3:22 pm
Thanks for the information, I have 4 small dogs and I live in California, during the Winter they sleep inside with us, and in the summer they enjoy being outside.
I heard that if they stay outside in the winter, they might end up with arthiritis.
January 23rd, 2009 at 8:34 am
There are several stray cats that me and my family feed and provide shelter for, I will definenlty pass this information on!
January 28th, 2009 at 7:29 pm
Your advice to feed ducks or gulls dog or cat food is repulsive to me as a committed lifelong vegan. It may be true that some wild birds eat meat, but it is our duty as knowledgeable humans to convert them to a vegan diet. It is not only more humane, but it is much better for their health.
I personally feed ducks walnuts and hominy grits. They love it.
January 29th, 2009 at 6:05 pm
Hi Kim. There are plenty of vegetarian companion animal food options. You can find a good list here: http://www.helpinganimals.com/animalsHome_gi_vegAnimals.asp
February 2nd, 2009 at 3:04 pm
I saw someone comment on converting wild animals to vegans, being a vegan myself I’m not too sure wild birds or any animal for that matter need to be converted but to each their own. Animals are wild for a reason, even our companion animals come from a long line of meat eaters. To change that or force change on them always seemed wrong to me, but what do I know I’m only one pet owner and one women who spends around eighty dollars a month to feed all of the wild animals in my back yard.
And the vegan pet food compaines, I always worry about cruelty to animals so a cruelty free pet food company has always meant more to me than anything else. I’m a Natural Balance and Halo user myself. Anyway these are all great tips, and ones I always follow.
One quick thing though, I always feed animals year round. Deer, birds of all kinds except humming because the nectar freezes here in the Ohio Valley in the winter, rabbits, opossum, raccoons, moles, groundhog, gophers, foxes, coyote, wild turkey, baggers and bats. I don’t think I’m leaving anything out. Anyway as I said I put food out year round, just not all of the time and with breaks of about a week in between in the warmer months.
Am I doing anything wrong? I know the animals will become dependent on the food in the backyard that’s why I pull it in about every two weeks for a week when the weather’s warm and they can find food on their own. Plus it keeps down on the number of nesting birds in the spring which can cause damage to your house as some of us may know. Anyway do let me know if what I’m doing is alright, I don’t want to ever harm the wildlife in any way.
February 2nd, 2009 at 4:49 pm
Domestic rabbits are companion animals and really should be kept inside (yes, they are able to be litter box trained!). But, if you must keep one outside, please remember to make sure it has a warm place to live in the winter and a cool place out of the sun in the summer. Also, make sure it has rabbit pellets and greens every day. And, a constant supply of fresh water along with fresh timothy hay 24/7.
February 2nd, 2009 at 8:10 pm
I feed the ducks at the pond cat food; they love it and they surely need it because there’s nothing else in this frozen town for them to eat. When I see people feeding them bread I tell them that bread will kill the ducks; if they don’t stop I take out my camera; believe me, people do not like being photographed and they’ll stop. It’s particularly hard though to advise elderly people to stop feeding bread to the ducks, I’ve offered them my cat food to feed the ducks instead, but they refuse to do the right thing by the ducks, they’re so sure they know best. They’re so rude to me, too!
February 2nd, 2009 at 8:16 pm
If you put water out, make sure you do not use heated bird baths. The warm water entices birds to bathe, but the water will freeze on their feathers if the air is too cold, which can be deadly.
I agree with Teresa regarding converting wild animals to a vegan diet.
February 2nd, 2009 at 8:43 pm
I feed the birds and deer, stray cats, wild turkeys, whatever all year round too. I have a bird bath warmer in my bird bath and the deer drink it dry in this cold weather. Squirrels and of course the birds drink from it, too. Birds and deer cannot break through this layer of ice over snow (rain after snow is the worst) and I enjoy seeing the wildlife all year round. I buy black oil sunflower seeds, niger, mixed wildbird, deer food, and put out cat food for the raccoons and opossum. The blue jays love dry cat food! Some of the wrens are eating it, too. I do not use chemicals on my lawn so would rather see the birds and whatever hang out around here than some other places. With the loss of wildlife habitat around here, I think they could use a little help.
February 2nd, 2009 at 9:38 pm
we have a doghouse that was on our property when we bought our house. There is a cat that comes by and we’re not sure if it is a stray (I don’t recall seeing a collar or ID tag). I will definately put some old blankets and food in that doghouse just in case. I often worry about that cat
February 2nd, 2009 at 9:49 pm
I just wanted to make sure to point out the very IMPORTANT need to bang on the hood of cars in the winter.
We take care of approx 10 feral cats. The mom and her baby have been here for almost a year ( also Sylvester has been here too for a year he likes to sleep in the shed where we made up beds for them) the rest just stop by for food and leave. Mommas baby would sleep in my husbands work truck engine because he left it plugged in ( 85 degrees under the hood 4 degrees outside) sadly baby chose to go into another persons engine after he left for work last saturday (Jan 24th). It took us till yesterday to catch her because she still is completely feral after a year. She suffered greatly from her injuries until she was too weak from infection and we caught her to be euthanized. The ONLY comforting part of any of this was in knowing I got to hold her for the first time and talk to her and love her as she went out of this world. I must believe for a brief moment as her life was ending she knew what it was to be loved.
Please tell people to take a brief moment out of their lives to BANG the hood loudly.
The suffering she went through was agony for her and us who could not catch her and could only listen to her yowl in pain. No animal should ever go through this.
February 3rd, 2009 at 8:19 am
I have spotted a yellow lab mix running around where I live at outside & sometime when it’s freezing out. One day that I saw her it was -5 degrees outside & I brought her in my house. Whenever I see I feed her & give her water. I have my local Animal Control so that they can come get because I feel bad for her & every time I call they just tell me that they’ll be out here in about 20 minutes & they never come. When I call them back to see where they are at, they always make up some dumb excuse. My animal control where I live at doesn’t care for animals. I want to start up a shelter for animals where I live at because I would take better care of them than my town’s animal control.
February 3rd, 2009 at 6:09 pm
HELP!! I started feeding a stray cat outside, and within a week I was feeding 4-5, and they are spraying outside. Any ideas on how to stop the spraying…we live on a small amt of land and it really stinks! HELP!!
Thanks, Pam