I normally have my a/c on 75-80 degrees when I am home and push it up to 90 during the day to save on electricity. Since last summer I have gotten two dogs and I am unsure about what do with the a/c during the day. I dont want to come home to broiled doggies, but I dont want to pay $150 power bills either. What do you guys think?
( I’m in central Florida and its supposed to go to 96 today)
I keep it on for my dog, and yes my bill last summer went from $22 to over $100 per month. But I also have a Great Dane who doesn’t tolerate the heat very well.
If your dogs are small to medium sized, have a long snout, and short coat, and you leave a lot of water for them, they will probably be okay, but if one is a really tiny dog or really large dog, and they have a pushed in snout, like a bulldog, or pug, or boston terrier, then you’d better leave the A/C on. They have enough trouble breathing normally, much less staying cool by panting.
They are a peke-a-poo and a lab; I wasnt going to turn it completely off, but what about leaving it at , say, 85 ? With the ceiling fans on and water?
Confining pets to a humid, broiling home day after day–and hoping they can subsist on extra water rations and short hair–strikes me as abuse, especially given the availability of more humane options.
Strange juxtaposition, really. On another thread, folks are describing the often extreme extents to which they will go to bring comfort to their pets’ lives. Maybe you should consider having your pets stay with a friend during the day. Ninety degrees is very hot.
Apparently I am satan’s spawn for allowing my dog to stay outside during the summer. Our cats don’t seem to mind the house in the mid 80’s. I’d say it probably depends on what your animal tolerates well. None of our animals have a problem with temperatures in the 80 to 90 ranges when they are outside. Anything above that and they come inside for the air conditioning.
Your dogs will spend most of their alone time sleeping so it’s not that big a deal. Make sure your dogs have a cool spot to sleep in and plenty of fresh water. If you don’t have any cool spots like a bathroom tile floor, there are cool gel-type mats available from the pet stores that are supposed to help though I have no personal experience with them.
I don’t know what the layout of your house/apt. is like, but what we do to keep doggies cool and a/c bill down is to shut the vents and doors to all the rooms but the living room/dining room/kitchen area, where they stay while we are gone. We always keep the vents and doors shut to the guest bedroom/bathroom and the office unless someone’s using them anyway, so all we have to do in the morning before leaving for work is to shut the vents and doors to our bathroom and bedroom. My dogs don’t tolerate heat well, so the a/c is left on 75 degrees. My highest bill last year was in August and was $100 for our 1,880 sq. ft. house, and I suspect if the husband hadn’t been at home all day for most of that month, it would have been lower. We live in NC, so it gets right hot here too.
If you try this, just remember that one of the rooms you need to leave open is the one with the thermostat in it.
I want to assure Tsunamisurfer that I am not abusing my doggies in any way. My previous doggie was kept inside all the time with the air on 75, but that was in a small apartment where I didnt pay the electric bill. I am now in a rather large house. I would never turn the air off or leave it at 90 with the dogs inside- rather, I wanted to know the highest temp that would be comfortable for them. The lab is 5 years old and has always been an outside dog, so its a treat for him to be inside now! Anyways, I have been leaving the air on 83 with the kitchen fans on ( its got a cool ceramic tile floor) and they seem to be doing ok. We’ll see what my bill next month is like! Thanks for the advice.
If your dogs are accustomed to the temperature you usually keep the house at while you are home, I wouldn’t change the temp by too much while you are gone. It’s a matter of acclimation. It’s not that your dogs can’t be comfortable at 83 degrees, but that they aren’t used to it most of the time.
I leave my house at a constant temperature, but that is because I have guinea pigs, and they cannot take extremes in temperature.