During that now-famous Texas freeze last month I spent three nights in a 5'x6' closet on a stack of backpacking/camping pads in a down sleeping bag. I built a wide pallet for the dogs with another pad and a yoga mat and a big dog cover that normally goes over the sofa to keep hair and mud off of the furniture - and we four slept in there during the four days of no power.

The first night they weren't sure what to expect and I got up a couple of times to take them out to the yard, but after that they realized we were going to sleep there all night and they stayed put. It was so much warmer in the closet, as uncomfortable as the positioning was for me (I'm a little taller than the space where I had the mats and I couldn't quite sleep diagonally because there is a built-in shelf thing that was in the way).

There was always a little jockeying for position when we first got into bed for the night, but then they settled down. I had lots of chew toys in there to distract them. The three are a 75-pound Labrador retriever, a 45-pound Blue Heeler, and a 35-pound boxer-pit mix mutt. The temperature was up to between 60-70 degrees by morning. They loved our camping trip in the closet.