Cats In The Hot Weather

Oh, I feel so lucky! I live in the southern hemisphere in Australia. Where we live, we've had a freezing cold snap, so Ginga loves lying next to the heater.

Anyway, in the summer, we usually keep the AC on all day. Jazzy usually lounges around outside. Ginga hasn't experienced a summer yet, so she's ok.

No A/C here. The cats generally sprawl on the tile or laminate and if it gets really hot they go down to the basement. Considering how well they seem to be sleeping, I think they cope with the heat better than me or DH.

Cotton is actually more active this summer than he's every been...it's kind of weird.

Originally Posted by at129

Mine LOVE the heat. I've been calling them Desert Cats, because they will avoid the air-conditioned rooms (we only have window units) in favor of the sweltering un-cooled areas.

Click to expand...

They are desert cats. Cats "domesticated us" in Egypt, or possibly the fertile Crescent (Iraq area, new theory). -They tolerate heat much better than cold IMO. Their closest living relatives are things like the cerval and Arabian sand cat, etc...

From personal experience, I know my cats have all prefered to siesta in the middle of the heat of the day. There also seems to be a corrolation between slepeing position and temperature. Summer means less loaf and more sprawl on the floor. Our family cat Midori "frogs" but then there's soemthing really peculiar about her hip joints too, we thinks.

Today s/b the last of the 90 plus weather. My guys have not been out in their enclosure in about 6 days, just too hot.

I close the curtins on the east side of the house in the morning and keep the house closed up. I open it up about 3 am and put fans in the windows to pull in the cool air. Then close up when the sun starts streaming in.

Fans in every room. No ac. They pretty much just sleep on the cool floors. Something I may end up doing!

It's lovely and cool in my livingroom, but in the conservatory it's been over 31!. Rosie and Jack will go inside where it's cool, but Sophie loves the heat.

I brought her inside from the conservatory the other week because it was so hot, but she cried for me to open the door again I ended up giving in, but i rubbed her all over with a cold damp face cloth, put the fan on and made sure there was plenty water and ice in the bowl.

Originally Posted by farleyv

They pretty much just sleep on the cool floors. Something I may end up doing!

Click to expand...

I hear ya! Even with the air on, I'm thinking the cool tile floor looks pretty inviting!

Originally Posted by Lyrajean

From personal experience, I know my cats have all prefered to siesta in the middle of the heat of the day. There also seems to be a corrolation between slepeing position and temperature. Summer means less loaf and more sprawl on the floor.

Click to expand...

Yes! This is so true!

Interesting that the word "sprawl" has come up alot in all of these responses. "Sprawling" definitely seems to be the prime choice of position!

My two cats live outside. There is a huge pecan tree that gives shade and shrubs by the house they can lay under. Lately though here in eastern NC we have a tropical heat wave with record temps of 100 and over for days in a row. I put the cats on the porch which is screened in and they love to lay on the concrete floor. It must feel cool to them. I turn on the ceiling fan. In extreme heat, I put them in the cat carriers and sit them inside the dining room door and let them cool off for awhile. I also wet a big towel and keep them wiped down with it. It cools them and they love it. Mostly though they just sprawl around on that concrete floor and sleep.

The outside ones don't mind it. They go under a carrier that is broken down or in the trees in the shade. They also like lounging in the trees, if I come outside I see at least one climbing out of a tree. They will also sprawl out on the concrete of the shaded car port but I will find them laying in the sun.

They always have plenty of water so they can drink as needed.

They didn't mind winter either, they had a cat house with a pillow case filled with cedar chips to go into if they were cold, but you would find them laying in the snow or sitting letting it snow on them. They also loved playing in the snow(for the kittens it was their first winter.) Mama had no hair on her rear and part of her tail from Dec on and was never cold(the vet had to shave her bald there because of her rectal prolapse), the thought of going inside was not something she wanted, she decided she had had enough of inside after a week and let herself out, and you would find her in the snow. Mama is nothing but fur so she is well protected when it's cold(well when she has fur.) She had so much fur that she had mats on her head around her ears, she shed them in spring and summer so I never touched them, I was worried she would get hurt if I tried to remove them since she wouldn't stay still to let me remove them.

It bothers some cats more than others. Mine seem comfortable year round.

Taryn

Mine love Summer, they remain crazy active and will also seek out sunshine to lay in even in our weeks of 40+ temperatures.

I don't have AC, but my new apartment is on the bottom floor of the building (next door to another) and gets very little direct sunlight. If it gets too warm I just wipe down Danny and myself with a damp cloth. The evaporation does the trick!

Originally Posted by farleyv

I close the curtins on the east side of the house in the morning and keep the house closed up. I open it up about 3 am and put fans in the windows to pull in the cool air. Then close up when the sun starts streaming in.

Fans in every room. No ac. They pretty much just sleep on the cool floors. Something I may end up doing!

Click to expand...

That's what we do - open up everything at night and/or the early morning, and then close the windows and shutters to keep the cool air inside, and use fans.
Jamie will lie on the tile floor or water bed (we've turned off its heater because of temperatures well up in the nineties and no a/c), and yam for the fans to be turned on when we're home. I put one of his beds down in the cellar, where it's nice and cool all the time, but so far he isn't using it.

Thanks for this thread -- it's so helpful to see other kitty mommy responses to this heat.

Lola and Madeline, both 4 months old, do pretty much the same as everyone has previously listed. Sprawling on our hard wood floor.

We only have 1 window a/c unit and cannot put anymore in due to the structure of the windows in the back of the house. But in addition, we have an evap cooler, and 5 fans. During the day, we have the a/c on -- from when we get up until about 10p at night. Than we turn the evap on.

We have 5 bowls of water throughout the house for them and also put ice cubes in it from time to time. We also have small ice type packs (only sold at CVS) for the kitties that if they seem to be particularly hot, we put on their bellies. They love it and fall asleep in our arms when we do this. They don't get terribly cold that it would shock them.

Once night hits though, they are crazy and go running around the house playing with each other. Cutest thing ever.

Originally Posted by at129

Mine LOVE the heat. I've been calling them Desert Cats, because they will avoid the air-conditioned rooms (we only have window units) in favor of the sweltering un-cooled areas. They like to be near me, but they'll lie on the wool carpeting right outside the bedroom door and refuse to come in. The spare bedroom upstairs gets unbelievably hot, and they love it. I actually caught them CUDDLING in there a few days ago, in the middle of a giant sunbeam on the floor. Crazy much?

We're in the middle of a weeklong heat wave in Pittsburgh - 90+ degrees
all week. So, like it or not, they're staying in the air-conditioned bedroom with me. It's so bad right now that the a/c can't even keep up...I have it set on 62 degrees and I'm sitting here sweating.

Click to expand...

Just like mine! I have A/C in 3 out of 6 rooms and my cats are avoiding them! Their favorite new spot is the room that is the further away from the A/Cs and therefore the hotter one. They just lay there and do nothing all day. I think they just need a reason to lay down all day without feeling guilty. Lol. By going in this room they can blame it on the heat!

We are having the worst heat wave in 76 years! It's been +30 up to +34 (approx. 93F)degrees outside, propably the same inside, for the last 2 weeks and still at least week to go with the same.. The sun barely goes down during the night (and 2 weeks ago it didn't, at all) so it doesn't really get much cooler during the night. And the air is very humid, I keep waiting for thunder but there hasn't been any.
I feel like I'm melting, I'm not used to this kind of weather at all and it's killing me. The cats seem to be disliking it also, I even had to cool Luna with a wet cold towel because she was panting (and I trimmed the fur from her tummy). We don't have ac's here so I have all of the kitty proofed windows open and some table fans, but it's not helping. Poor kitties, they just lay on the bathroom and toilet floors (tile floors) and don't want to do anything.

Outside cats - semi-ferals - surprisingly seam to fare quite well, finding low places in whatever shade that the yards have - usually yards get watered twice a day, so many areas are damp - especially in the sandy soil.

Our outside cats get life in the heat better each year with our home now beginning to look like a some sort of camp for who knows what ...
I've erected various plastic tubs under trees.

Around our pool and our covered patio we have what is called Kool Deck -( so when you're swimming and put your footsies (sp) on the pavement you don't burn them) so, it's cool for the cats to lay on.

The covered patio also has shades. Last year we put up a small shelter on the patio for the cats- both to give them shade, and to shade the kool deck to keep it even more cooler than what is around the pool and in the direct sun.

The shelter consisted of the the board insulation - worked really well. In the 120 degree weather I would take out 2 gal jugs of frozen water for them to lay against, which they gladly accepted.

This year, I've added a misting system to the "protection", and so far they're mostly just climbing into the chair tents I've made that are near the misting system, and only with extreme heat do they go into the other shelter.

Our garage is insulated, but not cooled - I'm amazed that they will go in there and find a cool spot on the floor, even though the temp in the garage may be 10-15 degrees cooler, it can still be almost 90+ in there - yet they go in there through the cat door we've installed.

All that to say - the cats seem to be able to withstand the heat fairly well -
the evening brings them out by the cooler area around the pool water - I always have plenty of fresh water around, and when the temps stay around 100 at night, I put out drinking containers with ice, and add a small amount of water to that container - water IS the key, IMO.

You could freeze large containers of water (I use 2 gallon empty bleach containers because they're made of stronger plastic - and, I do have an extra freezer - but, even smaller containers of frozen ice would last them during the day.)

Yeah - frozen water, and ice in the water is definitely a good thing!

It's amazing - cats seem to find the cool places, especially with good help from their friends!!

Originally Posted by NorthernGlow

We are having the worst heat wave in 76 years! It's been +30 up to +34 (approx. 93F)degrees outside, propably the same inside, for the last 2 weeks and still at least week to go with the same.. The sun barely goes down during the night (and 2 weeks ago it didn't, at all) so it doesn't really get much cooler during the night. And the air is very humid, I keep waiting for thunder but there hasn't been any.
I feel like I'm melting, I'm not used to this kind of weather at all and it's killing me. The cats seem to be disliking it also, I even had to cool Luna with a wet cold towel because she was panting (and I trimmed the fur from her tummy).

We don't have ac's here so I have all of the kitty proofed windows open and some table fans, but it's not helping. Poor kitties, they just lay on the bathroom and toilet floors (tile floors) and don't want to do anything.

Click to expand...

You've got the same weather we're getting - so far this week, three people have passed out at school, and several others, including teachers, have had to go home early. It was 30° in the classrooms yesterday, 35° outside.

If you can get them (they're sold out just about everywhere here), try the bigger oscillating fans on stands - they're more effective than the table-top ones. We've got them aimed at the level of the bed and the kitchen table, and have a "tower" fan on the floor in the living room, so Jamie has a choice. He used to prefer the tower, but he's lost all fear of the "fan monsters" now.

We're at 109 right now. I had the outside cats inside - with the A/C, with a cat door.

When I last looked, they had all chosen to go outside in this heat!!! I do have the misters (sp) running, and they do have the insulated shelter - so, I guess they'd rather be outside -in the heat- than inside in the 77-80 degree temps?

Try and figure that one out!

Originally Posted by GloriaJH

Try and figure that one out!

Click to expand...

I know!! I came home today - I had left the blinds down, the windows open, as usual, but I left the little oscillating fan on, just to move the air around - and I walked in the door and Larry was all stretched out on the sofa - this sofa has a tweedy covering! It's not wool, but it's not the coolest surface in the place!

Go figure.

its 124 degrees outside right now, its 92 degrees in my trailer with 2 ACs running.
Spaz is sacked out in the hallway where there is no airflow.
Jade is sprawled across the counter and Baby is the monorail cat on my desk chair.

I wish I could leave fans on, but they are a huge fire risk in a trailer.
I'm not as concerned for the cats as I am the dog though.