52 – Enjoying a Winter Wonderland with Your Pet

Enjoying a Winter Wonderland with Your Pet Marty and Laura share great ideas for enjoying a winter wonderland with your pet. From snow angels to snow mountains to skijoring, they walk you through all the fun activities with a few safety precautions. Should your dog have outfits and boots for the cold weather? Marty and Laura have some pro tips and a few funny stories about outfit failures on their own dogs. “There are some tricks and tips to this,” Marty says. “First of all, I think the most dangerous temperature for the dogs is right at that freezing slushy temperature. Because if it's colder, they actually do better than if it's slushy. Now, once it gets about 10 below zero, the dogs try to stand on two feet, and dogs cannot walk on two legs very well. So that gets a little tricky. The trips outside are pretty short, and a lot of dogs decide to use the indoor bathroom instead of the outdoor bathroom. So that becomes a a problem. “But the slushy temperatures are risky because if they lay in the snow or they spend too much time in the snow, their feet or their underparts, they tend to frostbite at that slushy temperature.” “Speaking of ice,” Laura says, “there's a couple things with ice and super cold temperatures in our dogs particularly, and that’s snowballs in their feet. The first time I encountered this and my dog just kind of like flopped down on the ground and wouldn't walk. And I'm like, oh my God, what's wrong with him?” Marty recommends trimming between the dog’s pads to help eliminate issues with snowballs. She also has recommendations for pet safe deicer, so be sure to listen in for that tip of the day. The Marty & Laura Show is produced by Pure Dog Talk Inc., with sound design and editing by Premium Audio Services.