How to Care for Dogs in Winter

Video Transcript

"How to care for your dog in the winter? Obviously this will depend upon your climate where you live. If you live in a warmer state, that's not as big of an issue. One of the most important things is to allow your dog to acclimate to the outside temperature. If your dog is going to be spending time outside during the winter, make sure that they're in outside during the fall and that their body gets comfortable with the weather a little bit at a time rather than taking a dog from a temperature controlled household setting and putting them out in the yard on a twenty degree day. You want to provide your dog with shelter obviously. A dog house should be sized to fit close to the dog. Think about this here; when your dog is in the dog house, you want it to be small so that their body heat will warm the temperature inside of the house. A big dog house may seem really great to us, but it's not going to be very comfortable for the dog. So really, probably similar rules as crating apply here. You want it to be comfortable for your dog to get in a turn around and lie down and comfortably, not a whole lot bigger than that. Certainly not very high either. You can put some kind of bedding in there that will help keep your dog warm; maybe straw or actual blankets would be ideal and maybe even put some kind of a flapper over the door so it warms your dog even more if your dog will get into the dog house under these circumstances. Also strongly recommend, you watch your dog for awhile. Many dogs won't get into a dog house and so you don't, you have this nice place, nice warm place provided for your dog outside and then they won't use it. So take that into consideration. One thing that cannot be forgotten is to make sure that your dog has a fresh supply of not frozen water at all times. Sometimes we don't think about that; making sure that they have water. But you would want to provide some kind of a safe place for the water to be or heated bowl that keeps the temperature of the water just above the freezing point so that your dog always has water to drink. If your dog has a coat that grows or a double coat that would come in, obviously the acclimating part would be useful for double-coated dogs; if they're outside as it gets colder they will start growing a thicker undercoat that will be much warmer in winter. If you have a longer hair, a dog whose hair could be left to grow longer; obviously let it grow longer. For example I have Poodles and their hair needs to be cut on a regular; if I were going to be leaving one of my Poodles out in the yard; which is a really bad idea for this particular breed of dog; then I would let their, their hair grow longer for a winter time environment. One another thing to consider and this would be if you have a lot of ice or snow; if you go on regular hikes or anything with your dog, keep an eye on the pads of their feet. Sometimes ice and snow can be really damaging to the pads. And so you want to make sure that they don't get cuts and scrapes and, and their pads become damaged. You could, if you're not in the position to let them get use to that; walking on snow and ice; then you could put boots on them. Many sports stores and online location sell such items for dogs that have just regular rubber bottoms on and then can be tied on to their feet for protection."