Crate cooling ideas? - Page 1

I'm looking for any ideas people may have on keeping dogs cool while they're in their crates. We currently have plastic 500 series airline crates with cedar bottoms. The crates are in the back of a Dodge Ram with a cap over them. We currently get bags of ice and spread under the cedar bottoms, and also a couple of small fans blowing on the dogs. The ultimate goal would be to buy a trailer with a high output fan or A/C unit installed. Right now that's night a financially feasible option. I found dog box that has a 100cfm exhaust fan installed in it, I was just wondering what other people use to keep there dogs cool on the hot summer days of training. Thanks for the input.

Zach

Either use a 1" paddle bit and drill hundreds of holes, or use an open wire crate.

Caps can hold in too much heat too. Heat rises and neither of those are vented on top. I'm not recommending you drill thousands of holes in the cap, but you can park in the shade and move the crates out of the bed. Ewww, or you could buy one of those 12v coolers and leave the lid open. In fact, buy two and bring the beer. Now that would be cool!

The side windows on the cap flip up and we have small fans installed there as well so there is good air flow. I think what I'm looking for is a crate with a good fan built into it. The fans they make for crates are junk. I don't like the idea of a wire crate because of how flemsy they are. I like the aluminum crates but I'll be in the same situation with those that I'm in with the airline crates I already have. I found a crate that they make for gun dogs that has a resevoir attached to the bottom that you can fill with cold water, but of course it's too small for GSD's.

 
http://www.rayallen.com/product/12volt_Kennel_Fan/Kennel_Comfort

This one moves some air and is probably the best 12volt on the market







Also you may want to consider a cooling vest

The ice deal work good but pouring it out on the floor of crates is messy i fill up 1 gallon gatoraid bottles and freeze them they will stay frozen alot longer then the ice cubes just refreeze them if dogs don,t eat them my dogs just lick the heck out of them and lay on them.

My male GSD rides in a Zinger Winger crate under a truck cap in the back of our Ranger; he has gotten too broad across the shoulders to fit behind the seats in the truck. It has gotten brutally hot and humid this summer in SW Ontario so I really worry about him when we are driving to training.

We don't have much luck with wireless thermometers so we put a wired outdoor thermometer probe in the top corner of the crate and zip tied the display unit to the back of the crate so that it is between the cap and the back truck window. This provides us with a rough idea of how hot the crate is as we are driving - if it gets too hot then we stop, let him out for a drink, wet down his paw pads, etc.

We use an O2 Cool Rechargeable fan to move some air and frozen pop bottles of water (as another commenter has posted). I would like more air movement and have read on a similar thread on the WDF about the Endless Breeze Pet Fan or may ask my husband (he's a mechanical engineer) to build one from a radiator fan (as described on the WDF thread).

Laura

I have an aluminum dog box with 2 bays. I like it better than plastic crates for cooling. I can keep a sun shade over the top and it helps reduce heat, plus I can throw ice inside and the aluminum stays cooler from the ice vs plastic. Actually, we use ice and plastic bottles that are frozen. I also finally found those O2 fans, so we'll be using them starting this weekend. 

Just for fun, I thought I'd pick up a ProSelect *DELUXE* fan to see how I liked it. It wasn't too expensive, so what the heck.

http://www.petedge.com/product/ProSelect-Deluxe-Thermostatic-Crate-Fans/45023.uts

You can buy an optional cooling cartridge, which you stick in the freezer. It's only good for a couple of hours though, so I bought an extra cartridge.

I've also seen cooling beds, that are supposed to be good for 6-8 hours, but I haven't put one to the test.

The fan is battery operated, you can buy an adapter for your car, or one you can plug in to a regular socket. The control switch is a bit finicky, that's my only complaint so far, but i've only used it once.

We also use the frozen water in pop bottles. I use 2 litre bottles. small fan on front of crate. Dogs lick the heck out of the condensation on the bottles and the cooler air from the frozen bottles help as the fan blows on it. Have to kind of watch out for the pop lids though. Some like to chew them off others just lick the bottles and or lay against them.