Keeping a dog or cat safe in cold weather

A healthy, thick-coated dog is built for cold that would have you reaching for a second coat, and the winter worry is usually misplaced onto the temperature when the real hazards are elsewhere.

Knowing which pets genuinely feel the cold, and which winter dangers do the actual harm, matters more than any thermometer reading.

Which pets actually feel it

Cold tolerance is mostly coat, size and age.

A husky or a Bernese is happy in weather that a whippet, a greyhound or a small short-coated dog finds painful, and puppies, elderly dogs and thin or unwell animals lose heat fast whatever their breed. A dog that lifts its paws, shivers, slows down or wants to turn back is telling you plainly that it has had enough, and that's the signal to trust rather than a number. For the breeds that feel it, a well-fitted coat on walks is practical kit, not a costume.

Size matters for a reason worth knowing: a small animal has more surface area for its volume, so it loses heat faster than a large one of the same build. That's why a chihuahua in a jumper isn't an indulgence and a malamute in one is faintly ridiculous. Wet and wind shift the whole scale too — a damp dog in a breeze at five degrees is colder than a dry one at freezing.

Cats mostly regulate this themselves by staying in, and the main winter job with a cat is making sure it always can — a cat flap that has iced shut, or a cat shut out by accident, is how an indoor-leaning animal ends up cold and stuck.

Hypothermia is the thing all of this is guarding against, and it's worth knowing what it looks like, because it doesn't announce itself. Shivering that becomes violent, then stops; a listless animal that's slow to respond; pale gums, cold ears and feet; and eventually stumbling or collapse. Move the animal somewhere warm, dry it thoroughly, wrap it in blankets warmed on a radiator, and ring the vet — a cold animal needs to be rewarmed gradually rather than put in front of a fire or a hot bath, both of which do more harm. Frostbite takes the extremities first, so check ear tips, the tail and the paws of a dog that's been out a long time in hard cold.

The dangers that are not the cold

Antifreeze is the winter poison.

It tastes sweet, animals lap up a spill or a drip readily, and a very small amount causes fatal kidney failure — and the early hours look like nothing much, so treatment has to start before the animal seems ill. Store it sealed, clean every spill at once, and treat any suspicion of ingestion as a same-hour emergency, not a wait-and-see.

Rock salt and de-icer are the other one: gritted pavements irritate and crack paw pads, and a dog that licks the salt off its feet afterwards can make itself sick, so wipe the paws with warm water when you come in.

Then there's the cat under the bonnet. A cat looking for warmth will climb into a recently-driven engine bay and settle against the warm block, with results that are exactly as bad as they sound. In cold weather, bang on the bonnet or sound the horn before you start the car — it costs a second and it's a real and common way cats are killed and injured in winter.

Walks, ice and the dark

Frozen ponds, lakes and canals are the season's other serious risk: a dog runs onto ice that won't hold it, goes through, and can't climb back out.

Keep dogs on the lead near frozen water, and if a dog does go through, never go in after it — call for help, because the water that won't hold the dog won't hold you either.

Beyond that, winter walks are mostly about being seen: it gets dark early, so a reflective harness or a light on the collar is worth having, and grit and slush hide the same broken glass and hazards the summer path does.

Snow has its own small annoyances. It balls up into hard lumps between the pads of a hairy-footed dog and makes it lame within a kilometre, so trim that hair back for the season and check mid-walk. Deep snow hides holes, fences and drops, and a dog running flat out through it can injure a leg on something it never saw. And a dog that eats mouthfuls of snow is usually fine, but snow isn't a substitute for water — take some with you on a long cold walk just as you would in summer.

Warmth, food and the older animal

Give every pet a warm, draught-free bed away from the cold floor, and give outdoor-access cats a way back into somewhere heated.

Working dogs burning energy in the cold may need a little more food; the housebound pet exercising less over winter often needs slightly less, so the season is a good moment to check they aren't quietly gaining weight indoors.

Cold stiffens arthritic joints, so an older dog or cat may move gingerly, be slower to warm up and want a softer, warmer place to lie — worth a mention to the vet if it looks like more than the usual winter creakiness. A slightly longer, gentler warm-up at the start of a walk helps an old dog more than a shorter walk does, and a raised bed away from the draught under the door is often the single change that makes the most difference.

Be careful with the warming itself, though. A hot water bottle can scald an animal that can't move away, an electric blanket is a chewing hazard and a burn risk, and a pet that falls asleep against a heater will happily stay there past the point of a burn. A thick bed in a warm draught-free corner does the job with none of that.

Outdoor and community cats

If there's a cat in your neighbourhood that lives outdoors, winter is when small help matters most.

A shelter costs almost nothing: a lidded plastic box with a hole cut in one side, raised off the ground, insulated with straw rather than blankets or hay — straw stays dry and traps warm air, while fabric holds damp and makes things worse. Face the entrance away from the prevailing wind.

Water is the harder problem, because it freezes. A deep bowl freezes more slowly than a shallow one, a plastic one more slowly than metal, and somewhere sheltered slower still; the practical answer is usually to check it twice a day rather than to outwit the weather. Wet food in cold weather freezes solid, so dry food is the kinder thing to leave out.

Winter also concentrates the household hazards a pet-proofing pass catches: the festive season brings chocolate, lilies and cables, and the salt and antifreeze come out of the shed. It's the same checklist as any other season, run again for the things winter adds.