It's Flippin' Freezing!

For the past 10 days or so, the South has been plunged into a deep freeze.  It's been a constant reminder of my favorite portrayal of hell - Dante's icy prison.  When it is literally painful to go outside, how can you not think of Dante?

Our spoiled doggy Sam has been sleeping indoors for the past seeeeeeveral nights, and before I hear any crap about me and my "strictly outdoor" dog, we really didn't have any other options.  We don't have a garage, which was my parents' answer to dogs and freezing temperatures.  Sam is also just 9 1/2 months old and a LAB which means he devours even the least appetizing items, such as car magnets, thorny rose bushes, clothes dryer vents... you get my drift.  So, making a doggy bed for him on the porch, complete with a space heater or heat lamp was definitely not an option.  So, at 6:00 on the first night with lows below 30 (that was my personal limit for him to sleep outside.  Not that I'm a monster when it's above 30 - his dog house is crammed full of warm cozy hay) we found ourselves at Tractor Supply looking at those kennels you can put in the bed of a truck when you take your lab duck hunting.  Right...  By the way, those things are around $90 for the "lab-sized" version.  We high-tailed it to Wal-Mart, hoping to find something cheaper.  We did!  We found a foldable version that is made out of tent material.  My mom calls it a pup tent.  Ha ha, get it?  Anyway, it was more like $30, so even though we thought there was a chance of Sam chewing his way out of it, we decided it's only short term, so if it doesn't work, we'll buy the expensive one next winter!  We also bought him a new bone to occupy him inside his new tent.

That night we set up the tent in the master bathroom, in case there were any accidents.  Let me remind you - our house was brand new when we bought it.  It's very nice.  Although most of our furniture was handed down from various relatives, the house itself is quite nice, so Sam doesn't ever come inside.  The last time he'd come in was the 4th of July because he was still very little and the fireworks scared him.  So, a towel on the cold tile (I know, I'm spoiling him), then his pup tent, then his own, "already kind of has a smell to it" blanket, and his new bone.  All waiting for bed time.

After he ate his dinner (with hot water poured on top to warm him up of course) we waited about an hour for him to go to the bathroom and get all his playing done.  Then we brought him inside.  We turned off all the lights except the TV and waited for him to settle down.  Surprisingly, he was on his best behavior.  I know labs are smart, but he was acting like he knew this was a privilege and that if he acted up he'd be out in the cold.  So he stretched out beneath the couch and took a nap!  He hasn't fallen asleep in front of us in MONTHS and he has more energy than should be possible, so this was pretty incredible.  He woke up everytime one of us moved, but in general, he was great.  At bed time he was so excited to find a bone in the tent that he didn't even notice we'd zipped him up and gone to bed!

This worked out really well.  We let him outside first thing the next morning, and we've been repeating this every night since then.  There have been no accidents in the house!

Hope all of you have been staying warm.  Can't wait for this Inferno-esque weather to end.