Ah, winter. A time of brisk air, cold breezes, shorter days, and heaps upon heaps of snow. For some people out there, winter is their favorite time of year ever. Winter brings along a sense of hibernation, as the cold, harsh weather provides for perfect opportunities to curl up with a loved-one by a fireplace with a cup of hot cocoa. For others, winter is the most awful and dreaded season that there is. There’s no denying that winter brings along a whole set of challenges and obstacles that simply don’t exist with the warmer months.
Along with all the peaceful things that winter is home to, on this time of year you will also confront with an entire set of challenges if you happen to own a pet who frequently goes outside. While the snow can certainly be exciting and joyful for them, there are some crucial safety tips that you need to keep in mind in order to make sure that your pet doesn’t get harmed from these cold months while out and about on the snow.
There’s certainly nothing wrong with letting your pet play out in the snow, but if you do decide to let your furry friend do this, there are some important precautions that you need to keep in mind in order to make sure that they don’t do anything that will harm them in any way.
Keep your home humidified
After a long bout of your pet playing around in the snow outside, they’re going to be cold and chilled from the harsh winter air that’s so prevalent during this time of year. However, that cold air can actually do a lot more damage than you might expect. You see, when your dog or cat is repeatedly going out to the cold weather and back inside your home to the dry air that’s in it, their skin can quite easily become itchy and flaky.
Not only is this uncomfortable for them, but it can also cause for some medical issues. In order to help and prevent this from happening, keeping your home humidified with a simple humidifier will go great lengths to helping keep your pet’s skin as healthy and itch-free as possible.
Wipe your pet’s feet as thoroughly as possible
Your pet is more than likely going to love playing around on the snow. In fact, they’ll probably love it more than anything during these winter months – especially if they haven’t experienced it before. However, the more fun they have romping around through it, the more you’re going to have to make sure you continually wipe and clean their feet.
As you pet goes outside in the snow, they can quite easily gather little balls of snow in between their foot pads. Whenever you see these, you’ll want to make sure you clean them out as soon as you see the, – in addition to wiping down the rest of your pet as well.
Prep your pup’s feet
If you’ve got a dog, the winter months won’t stop them from wanting and needing to go on frequent walks. While there isn’t anything wrong at all with walking your dog during the winter, there are some added precautions that you need to keep in mind when doing this. Because of the winter, sidewalks get icy. And, as a result of this ice, salt is put on the sidewalks to make them safer to walk on. While the salt certainly makes the sidewalks easier for us humans to walk on, the chemicals found in the salt can often be quite harmful to the paw pads of your little pup. In order to thwart the harmful nature of the chemicals found in the salt, putting a healthy amount of petroleum jelly on the paw pads of your pet can help out tremendously against these harmful chemicals.
In addition to petroleum jelly, some owners opt to get little booties for their dog to wear when going out on walks during the winter and through the snow. These do cost a bit more, but they’re even better at keeping your dog’s feet in the best possible health. Plus, they also help with preventing any salt or sand from getting stuck in between the toes of your little dog.
