Animal Control Officer Leah Stoltz said she’s heard just about every excuse why people don’t have bowls of water accessible for their pets.

Many times this winter she’s been out on calls to find water bowls empty, frozen or full of debris.

So she decided to find out exactly how long it takes for a bowl of water to freeze in winter. And she asked a Southwest Middle School science teacher for help.

Jackie Cromwell-Olson asked for volunteers. Bradford Milliron, Garrett Wangsness and Andie Harveaux, all eighth-graders, volunteered to do it as part of their states of matter project, she said.

“They all completed it at home with their own equipment,” Cromwell-Olson said. “They all turned in lab reports and they all got A’s or B’s.”

The students presented their findings to Stoltz on Friday.

Wangsness said he found that water in plastic dishes froze faster than water in metal dishes. He did his experiment when the temperature was 18 degrees. He found that water could freeze solid in two to four hours. He said if an item was placed in the bowl with the water, it froze slower.

Added Milliron, “For the first hour, the pet could break through the ice.” He conducted his experiment when the temperature was between 20 and 25 degrees.

Harveaux said she was surprised about how fast the water did start to freeze — within 20 minutes at 23 degrees.

She said she did the experiment because she likes all kinds of animals and hates to see them neglected.

Wangsness said he knew about the project because Stoltz brings her daughter to his mother’s daycare and they’ve talked about it. “It thought it would be a cool project to do,” he said.

For Milliron, the project hit closer to home. “I have a pet and I don’t want it to go without water,” he said.

Milliron said he learned from the Internet that people can keep their pets’ dishes from freezing as quickly by putting a pail of water inside a tire and putting rocks around the pail.

“The tire heats up in the sun and the water doesn’t freeze as quickly,” he said.

Stoltz said people can also buy heated water dishes for their animals and they’re not that expensive. A two- or three-gallon heated bucket costs about $30. A large dish for a cat runs about $24, she said.

“Then you don’t have to worry about your animals going thirsty,” she said.

Minnesota law mandates that animals need to be provided water every day.

“If you don’t use a heated dish, then it needs to be filled twice a day,” she said.

Stoltz said there have been many complaints this winter about pets being left without water. “When I see debris in the dish, I know it hasn’t been filled in days,” she said. “If pets knock the dishes over, people need to find a way so they can’t knock them over.

“It’s frustrating,” the animal control officer said.