Five Products for Surviving Winter With Your Dog
Walking down the street in freezing and icy weather can be a major solo-challenge for us humans. When you add dogs to the mix, let alone training your dog en route, all bets are off. We put together this guide below from trainers and members of our #TOCFam to help you and your dogs hack this Winter. [Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links, meaning TOC may get a commission if you decide to make a purchase through our links, at no cost to you. Oh, and if something’s out of stock, our bad! It was there when we originally published this article.]
The Five Products We Love For Surviving Winter With Your Dog
For the Human: Cleats!
Why We Love Them: Our friend and certified professional dog trainer, knowledge assessed, Gwen Podulka, tells TOC, “This is a dog owner’s best tool on a snowy day like today. Snow, sleet, and ice everywhere and we walked without a care, crunching along the way, destination coffee! And park.”
2. For the Human and Dog: Squeeze Tubes!
Why We Love Them: Kira Burkhart, a beloved member of our #TOCFam along with her mini American Shepherd, Bailey (@wigglebutt_bailey on Instagram) told TOC, “We love to go for nature walks and practicing recall, but it's a lot less fun handling stinky high value rewards with cold fingers. We started making squeeze tube smoothies for snowy, windy, cold weather walks.” For Kira’s recipe DIY smoothie recipe that you can make once you have your very own squeeze tubes, click here.
3. For the dog: Musher’s Secret paw balm
Why We Love It: Our TOC Co-Founder, Christie Catan, recently discovered that her dog, Otis (@otis_unleashed on Instagram), isn’t so hot on snow boots. Since it’s been snowing regularly in her neighborhood and there’s quite a bit of salt on the ground, she had to figure out another way to keep his paws safe (while she continues to work with Otis to desensitize him to his boots). She put Musher’s Secret on his paws before hiking in the woods. When she got home his paws looked great and she didn’t see any of those pesky ice balls that are such a pain to pick off.
4. For the Dog: Snow BodySuit
Why We Love It: There’s pretty much no one in our #TOCFam who makes snowy hikes look as fun as Huckleburry & Hazel (@cowboyhuck on Instagram) in Wyoming. Their humom, Jessi Rick, tells TOC, Hazel’s super suit is from ThreadzNTails and she highly recommends one for anyone with a dog that has a snowball or burr problem.
For the Dog: Boots!
Why We Love Them: If your dog is desensitized to wearing snow boots (you can use the same concept we outlined here to do this), they make life SO much easier. Imagine not having to worry about their paws getting salt and snowballs everywhere! We love this shot that Naila Campbell took of her mini Golden Doodle, Merit (@meritthemini on Instagram), wearing Ruffwear boots in the snow in Maryland. She calls these boots her “snow day essentials.”
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