Is Your Dog Cold at Night? Keeping Them Warm Indoors This Winter

We think about dogs being cold on walks. We think less about them being cold at home, at three in the morning, on a tile floor, with the thermostat turned down.

A lot of dogs spend Canadian winters a bit chilly indoors, and most of them are too polite to mention it.

Signs your dog is cold inside

• Sleeping curled in a tight ball with their nose tucked under their tail
• Shivering, even a little, while resting
• Moving to the couch, your bed, or right beside a heat vent
• Stiffness when they first get up in the morning
• Burrowing under blankets or laundry

Which dogs feel it most

• Short coated and thin breeds. Greyhounds, whippets, boxers, Chihuahuas and pit bull types have very little insulation.
• Small dogs. They lose heat faster because of their size.
• Senior dogs. Older dogs have a harder time holding their body heat, and cold makes stiff joints feel worse.
• Puppies. Still learning to regulate their temperature.
• Dogs that were recently groomed short. A fall shave down means much less coat heading into winter.

A husky sleeping on the cold kitchen floor is not the dog this post is about. They are fine. They picked that spot on purpose.

Get them off the floor

This is the biggest one. Cold settles low, and tile, laminate and concrete basement floors pull heat out of a body lying on them. Even a few centimetres of padding between your dog and the floor makes a big difference.

A bed with raised sides helps even more, because dogs naturally curl up and tuck against something to hold heat. Our warm dog bed has a thick removable cushion and sides to lean into, and the whole thing goes in the washing machine, which matters a lot when winter means wet paws and salty slush coming in every day.

Check where the bed is

• Away from outside doors, which let in a blast of cold every time they open
• Away from windows and patio doors, which are usually the draftiest spots
• Not directly on a vent either, which can get too hot and dry
• Somewhere they can still see or hear you, since most dogs sleep better near their people

If your dog sleeps in the basement, put your hand flat on the floor where their bed is. If it feels cold to you, it feels colder to them after eight hours.

Other simple fixes

• A spare blanket they can burrow into
• A sweater for thin coated dogs on the coldest nights, as long as they are comfortable in it and it is not too tight
• A short evening walk or play session, since a dog that has moved a bit goes to bed warmer
• Making sure they are fully dry before bed after a snowy walk

When it is more than being cold

Shivering can also mean pain, stress or illness. If your dog shivers in a warm room, or the stiffness in the morning gets worse over the winter, check in with your vet. Joint pain in older dogs is very treatable.

For keeping them warm outside too, our guide on how cold is too cold to walk your dog in Canada covers temperatures, wind chill and which dogs need a coat.