Pets feel the cold, just the same as we do. It’s especially a problem for our senior pets, as the cold can cause pain with their joints. Luckily, there’s a few things we can do to help keep our pets warm during winter.
The first one is we always recommend a nice winter dog coat. Invest in one if your dog is outside during those cold winter nights.
There are also heated throws that you can get, which I find a lot of pets really love, especially cats. They like to be warm. They plug into the power and you put them on one of the settings. It’s the same as an electric blanket, but for pets. We find our cats and our senior pets gravitate towards those nice warm, heated throws.
For those pets who sleep outdoors, any type of dog kennel is sufficient. The important thing is it’s somewhere where they can get out of the weather and the wind. Older pets like a bed that’s off the ground that helps to support their joints.
Keeping senior pets warm
Senior pets feel the cold a lot more and it can make their joints quite painful. There are a few things we can do to help alleviate that pain. The first one is making sure your senior pet isn’t overweight. The heavier your pet is, the more pressure on the joints and as a result, the more pain they can feel, especially in the cold weather.
The second one is joint supplements. We recommend 4CYTE which is a by-product made from the green lipped mussel, and it helps to protect the cartilage within the joints as well. It helps to lubricate their joints and it allows them to move around more easily, especially when they’re feeling the cold and their joints are painful.
Younger and working dogs
The 4CYTE products are really good to use as a preventative, especially in our large breed dogs. I find that they’re more prone to getting arthritis from a very young age. When first starting a joint supplement like 4CYTE early on in age, you’re actually preventing the onset of arthritis in your pet.
I’ve seen a lot of arthritic old kelpies come in and you can see they’ve definitely done a few miles in their time, so they’re definitely prone to getting arthritis as well, simply because they’re on their feet 24/7 and they’re such an active breed. Normally they’re a lot leaner in body condition, so the onset of arthritis in working dogs is a lot later in life compared to, say, overweight labradors.