How to Heat your Dog's House for the Winter!
 Hi,
I'm Marc. I've been through this before. You have a
two options if you need a heat source for your dog house.
You could purchase a full blown
heater/air conditioning system for $409 to $499. Or, you could take a simpler approach with a
heated kennel mat
for much less. Just put it on the floor of your pet's home
and plug it in. Many people buy this type of heater for
their puppies. The temperature is self-regulating.
The lowest price I've seen
is at
Dog.com.
They sell this
outdoor doghouse heater for $49 for a small, $59 for a medium and $69 for a
large. I bought the small size for Spanky.
PETCO
 and
PETsMART sell these for $10 to $30 more. It maintains a
temperature of
102 degrees Fahrenheit. It seems to hold up well, and it is easy to clean. Also,
the power cord is wrapped in a coil spring so Spanky can't chew through it.
It covers half of the floor in his doghouse so he can chose heat or no heat.
I also bought the Lectro Kennel thermostat so I can turn the temperature
down a bit if I want to.
CoolPetStuff.com
also has some very high quality Kane heated kennel mats,
but they are more expensive.
Heated Doghouses
To build or not to build — If you plan to do it
yourself you have a couple of options. You can buy a set of doghouse plans, or you can buy a dog house kit.
Doghouse Plans
There are a few sites out there that offer doghouse plans. About
the best I've seen is
L&R Designs (unless you want to pay $$$).
They offer a few different sizes and they only charge $5.95 per plan.
Dog House Kits
PETsMART
carries 4 wood dog house kits starting at $69.99. Obviously the kits
cost more than the doghouse plans, but it's probably worth it. (I speak from
experience.) You can assemble a quality dog house kit in about an hour. Try
doing that from scratch.
Finished dog houses
 Perhaps
you don't have the time or inclination to build from a set of doghouse
plans, and you just want to buy a dog house. Remember this
rule..."WOOD IS GOOD". I know it sounds corny, but wood has better
thermal properties than plastic. Buy a
wooden dog house, and your dog will thank you for it.
There are a number of retailers out there selling wooden
dog houses, and most of them are pricey.
PETCO
has dozens of wooden dog houses, many of them are on sale right now. The
preceding link will take you to 20 pages of dog houses; you'll have to
search through them.
CoolPetStuff.com
carries some "high end" dog houses.
Centrally Heating / HVAC
If you
simply must have central heating and air conditioning to keep your dog's housing, there is only one manufacturer, PetCool.
The best price I can find is at
ATRENDYHOME.COM
 for
$409. Most retailers sell it for $479. Suggested retail is $539.
This works like a traditional HVAC. It has a small compressor to blow
cold air in the summer, and heat strips to blow hot air in the winter.
This is not a heat pump, which means that it actually works on those very
cold winter nights. If you have a heat pump for your home you know
what I mean. They just don't heat well on the coldest of nights.
Like I said, this isn't a heat pump.
I
created this web site because I couldn't easily find
doghouse plans and
doghouse heaters to keep my dog Spanky warm during the winter. That's Spanky
above. It gets so cold here I almost need a furnace or a stove to keep
Spanky warm. After hours of surfing the web I finally found what I was
looking for, inexpensive doghouse plans and a reasonable way to turn his new
home into a
heated doghouse. Below is a condensed version of what I
learned.
I hope this makes your search easier than mine. One more thing, this
site is supported by advertisers, so please visit one of the links on the
right. Thanks!
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