Sleeping insulation for dogs

[Stumphges]

I’ve never been sure how much insulation, or in what form, is best for my dog in cold weather.

He’s a herding dog mix with a long double coat that seems to provide him comfort while active down to -20F. But at home when we turn the heat down to 60F in winter he’ll sleep on the bed with us much of the night, whereas in other seasons he finds the coolest place in the house to sleep. This makes me think that he actually likes to be cozy at night. So if the nighttime temps are 40F or below I always bring him a z-lite or short Prolite to sleep on. Sometimes he uses them, sometimes not, but I’m not sure that says anything more than he’s not good at moving the pad to where he wants to sleep, and I think that when we get to 30F and below he needs some insulation. But dogs are so stoic that its hard to tell.

Spurred by Ryan’s recommendation of the Nunatak dog bed, I thought I’d ask what everyone is using to keep their dogs warm at night.

I have a 550 FP down vest that actually fits him quite well. I like the idea of a vest, because when it’s not zipped up his belly is exposed and so he can modulate the effective insulation provided by changing his sleeping posture. E.g. if he curls up he gets full benefit, but if he gets warm he can spread out, or even go inverted, to dump heat from his belly. But despite my liking of it, he’s wormed out of it before and I suspect that it binds in his armpits and pisses him off in the night. So I need something better. But what?

Can we calculate how much insulation a dog needs for a given temp, like we can for ourselves using info and data like that Richard Nisley provided for us with his clo/METs graph long ago?

What is the best form for insulation for dog? A vest with flexible armpit fabric? A bag? But that’s gonna have to be attached to a pad, and he seems to be a pad agnostic.

How are you keeping your pups warm?

[Matthew / BPL]

I have a down Nunatak dog jacket for my ACD mix but she ends up shivering halfway through a night near freezing so she ends up under my quilt with me.

[Stumphges]

Thanks Matthew! That looks functionally just like a vest but no armpit pressure or binding. Does it stay put really well and not rotate on her trunk?

Does she get into your hammock with you? I’d written off hammock camping with a dog as impossible. Was I wrong?

[nunatak]

Guess I should chime in.

My dog gets cold at 70°F when inactive, so he’s a maintenance challenge in the backcountry.

He wears a down dog coat like Matt’s once we stop for camp, then we use an 3.6 oz Apex bivy for sleeping. Neither work alone, but used together he’s good to about 10°F cowboy camping. The coat is essential for core warmth, the bivy cuts wind, trap air and insulates further. Of course he’s also on a beefy cut down CCF pad.

He sleeps right at my shoulder so I can keep things in order during the night, and check for shivering. All has been good using this system for 5 years or so, year round. We were just out for a solstice trip near Cedar Mesa with night temps in the teens and blasting wind.

He gets more food than at home, too.

https://www.instagram.com/skottidog/

[JP]

My dog is a German Shorthair Pointer. She has a Zpacks custom quilt that’s made to 40* specs that she will use down to 20*. Below 20* she uses a Zpacks custom quilt made to 20* specs. This is paired with a NeoAir original short sleeping pad. Sometimes she will wear either a Ruffwear cloud chaser or a K9 top coat arctic bodysuit.

When we go winter camping in BWCA she uses the 20* quilt and a custom length Camptime Roll a Cot, with a Prolite XS pad into the cot sleeve. She will also pair this with a D-Fa Puff Doggy jacket. Sometimes when the temps are extra cold -20* or more I add a cutdown wool surplus blanket from harbor freight.

[Matthew / BPL]

Jan knows more about this than I do but I can confirm that his experience is consistent with my dog. The coat helps but it’s not a complete solution. I’m happy to have her join me in my wide quilt. There’s some air leakage but she’s a warmth factory so it seems to work. His apex dog quilts make sense to me.

She’s been out about a half-dozen nights of car camping with me, I haven’t been bold enough to take her backpacking yet.

She is very good at hammocks for an hour or two in the backyard but I don’t think she’d last a whole night. She has always slept between my son and I, in our bivies. She has six sections of an old ZLite pad. During the day it is open but at night it gets folded in half because she curls up tightly.

[Dan]

Our dogs have very short coats, so they always get into their fleeces when it starts to cool down, and they sleep on small pieces of closed cell foam. On really cold nights, I donate my puffy to my Boxer. They carry their fleeces in their packs BTW.

[Andy Berner]

 

I have a husky Australian cattle dog mix.  He’s about 6 months now.  We have been out 6 nights or so.   If using a hot tent he will stay outside until it’s cooled down.   Its fun to watch him walk in and the get hit by the heat and then do a U-turn and go back outside.

It’s been around 30 degrees 2 or 3 of the nights with out a stove.   He does curl up and I begin to worry, especially late into the night.  I’ll throw a blanket or a ruff wear coat on him.  Seems fine though.  I plan to keep taking our time and experimenting with it as the temps get colder

 

[Stumphges]

Thanks to everyone for sharing their experiences, gear, thoughts and pics!

 

I think a Nunatak down jacket is the way to go for us, combined with leaving his camping pads out around the house to build greater affinity for them:)

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