Your Step-By-Step Guide On How To Heat A Dog House

Every dog parent is sometimes stressed about their beloved pups during the winter days when the wind chill and air temperature make us humans stay indoors as long as possible, but the dogs want to stay and play outside. The main stress revolves around ensuring a warm and cozy spot for your dog. Well, the solution is a heated dog house. You have nothing to worry about the expense or the efforts as we have come up with some of the best ways that will determine how to heat a dog house most easily and cost-effectively.

From the simple heating methods to the solar-powered heated dog house, the below-mentioned ideas will ensure the best warmth, comfort, and coziness to your beloved family member this winter. So, check them all.

Considering The Location of Your Dog House

First, you have to consider your dog’s house location. You must keep the dog house in a sunny spot where it can absorb the maximum amount of sunlight in a day. You can opt to pick your paintbrush and give a dark-coloured coated layer to your dog house for increasing the sunlight absorption rate by the house to boost the warmth inside. Also, while working on this method, ensure the dog house door to be protected from the chilly winds. If not, you can add flap doors to the house.

Entrapping The Heat

You must ensure the dog house to be a cozy den spot for your beloved pup where they can heat the space with their own body heat. If the dog house is large in size, but your pup is small, you can make things easier for them to warm the house by separating off a small portion of space as their den. Likewise, if you have a large opening in your dog’s house with a window or a doorway, then the heat generated by your dog’s body will not remain inside the house. In such a case, you can add a heavy-duty vinyl flap door to the dog house for entrapping heat and warmth inside.

Moving The Dog House Inside

When considering the ways on how to heat a doghouse, you can try an easy way, which is moving the dog’s house to a place where it won’t be exposed to harsh weather conditions. The best option is commonly your garage. This will ensure to keep your dog away from the snow, chilly wind, and rain, but it won’t result in the house getting uncomfortably hot too. In addition, you won’t have to worry about the paw prints and dog hair inside your actual home.

Raising The Dog House Off The Ground

If you raise and level up the dog house off the ground by a couple of inches, it will enable a climate and weather-controlled solution for you and your dog in both summers and winters. This will enable airflow beneath the dog house floor to cool the house during summer. During the winter days, you can simply stuff the space between the dog house floor and the ground with hay or straw to enable warmth and coziness inside. However, you must not use the hay or straw inside the dog house as these materials can attract mites or fleas. You may also require to plan the exterior insulation as per the need, as it will start to decompose once it gets wet.

Add Insulation To Your Dog House

If your dog’s house is blustery, they will love you to insulate it, especially in winter. You can opt for conventional home insulation products like foam board, pet-safe caulk to fill the gaps, fiberglass insulation rolls for lining the walls, floor, and ceiling, or aluminum foil bubble insulation. You must add or install plywood or any other solid substance over the insulating agents to ensure the safety of your dog as he may end up chewing and ingesting them. On the other hand, you can purchase a doghouse kit that comes with washable, removable foam insulation that can get easily assembled and attached.

Keep Warm Bedding In Your Dog House

There are some highly-effective low-cost ways to heat your dog house too. For instance, you can add pine or cedar shavings inside your dog’s house as the wood shaving plays a key role in retaining the dog’s body heat, enabling a warm and cozy spot for him. Moreover, these wooden chips are insect-resistant and can assist you in keeping fleas and bugs away.

However, you must look out for sneezing or any other signs from your dog, as in some cases, they may be sensitive to the scent. Also, if you have puppies or a pregnant dog at home, it’s best to adopt the idea of wood shavings. For such scenarios, you can give sheets, towels, blankets, or rugs to your dog to make them feel cozy and warm.

One other option is the heated dog bed that entraps and retains the body heat of your dog. These dog beds are made up of thick insulation, enclosed in corduroy and faux wool. This requires no electricity and heats up the house to keep your pup warm and cozy with his own body heat.

Heated Kennel Mat For Your Dog House

The easiest and effective way to heat your dog house is to heat the kennel with a heated kennel mat. These mats are large-in-size heated pads where your dog will lay down, and they will receive warmth via electricity, similar to the heating pads used by humans.

You have to buy the heated kennel mat, place it on the floor of the dog house, and run the power cord to enable electricity passage. You won’t get any better and easier solution, and since many of these products are lavish as well, your dog will enjoy additional comfort and support while sleeping.

Moreover, you can also set the kennel mat under the dog house as per your preference. This will ensure to block the cold from entering through the floor while also ensuring that your dog won’t get uncomfortably hot.

However, you have to be careful as these pads can be dangerous to your dog if they like to chew on power cord cables. If that is something your beloved pup often does, you’ll need to look for ways to protect the cable. For the safety of your dog, use a PVC pipe to cover the power cable.

Install Electric Heater In Your Dog House

If you have no issue with budget, you can try the other way to heat your dog house, which is using an actual detached heating unit. This will ensure a warm, cozy, and comfortable temperature inside the dog house all winter long. However, you must avoid using space heaters that are designed specifically for human households, as they pose a hazardous risk of fire in your dog house. Heating units that are explicitly designed for dog houses are high-in-demand and short-in-supply, making them consequently a bit expensive.

Go For Solar Heating

If you’re looking for an eco-friendly way to pamper your pup, you must consider installing a solar heater. However, the process to install them is labor-intensive and complicated. You have to get solar panels and a charger suitable to your dog’s house size. Then, you must find the right spot to put them where they receive the maximum amount of sunlight and avoid your dog from chewing. For a solar heater, it’s best to get experts for installation. Mostly, they attach the solar panels to the dog house roof and adjust everything for you.

Add A Furnace

If you have a furnace for heating your house, then why not use it for heating your beloved dog’s house too. Heaters that are explicitly designed for dog houses ensure safety features for protecting your dog from chewing the cord and potential burns. The cords are mostly chew-proof with vinyl coating. The mini-furnaces for your dog house come with a range of temperature settings, which you can mount on the ceiling or wall to ensure a specified temperature for warming the dog house.

Conclusion

From this comprehensive guide, you can get the best insight into the wide range of ideas, starting from extremely simple to insanely elaborate ideas on how to heat a dog house. You can choose to apply any of the above-mentioned ideas, but it’s best to start off with bedding or a heated pad as they’re comfortable for your dog, inexpensive, and easily accessible. Obviously, you can invest in an expensive and intricate way of heat setup, but as of now, it’s best to focus on the most effective way. So, get your dog’s house heated and make your dog more than happy.