DOG PAWS & WINTER

Well, last night we got the first wintery storm of 2013-2014and I’m sure there’s more to come.  This time it arrived more in the form of ice than snow.

Of the many problems winter weather can produce for pet owners, one of the most serious but also most overlooked is the issue of ice-melt products and your dog’s paws.

It’s imperative that everyone stay safe by preventing falls on the ice. I slipped on ice on the front steps at an old apartment back in 2009 and it took over eight months for the bad ankle sprain to fully heal. No one wants to go through that or worse.

So what’s the answer?  Ice-melt for sidewalks, steps and driveways.  Here’s what you need to know about ice melts with some suggestions on how to keep your pets safe and happy on winter walks:

• Dogs (and cats) may ingest commercial chemical salts that are tracked into the home after a dog has had a walk. These substances can be very dangerous, especially for a smaller animal, and act as a poison. Be careful upon returning from each walk to diligently clean the dog’s paws, legs and tummy of all traces of snow, dirt and salt. You also need to be careful not to track any ice melt into the home on your own shoes/boots!

• DO NOT let your dog enthusiastically eat snow anywhere along the side of a road/parking lot or near any other area that has been plowed/shoveled and treated with ice melt. They may get a mouthful of snow that has residual chemical ice melts in it that you can’t even see and become very ill. Take them to romp in the snow far away from any areas that could potentially have spray-over from ice melt application.

• Commercial chemical ice melts can burn the pads of your dog’s feet, and get stuck between their toes and continue to do damage. When walking, especially right after a storm when there is heavy coverage on roads and sidewalks, try to keep your dog in the snow as much as possible. If you come to areas of heavy application, go around them, don’t walk over or through them.

• If your dog does start to react to the ice melt by suddenly dancing around, yipping, crying, whining in some way or biting at their paws, immediately move them into clean snow and start cleaning their paws off with it, making sure to check between each toe and paw pad to remove all traces of the offending particles.

• When you get home from your walks, rinse your dog’s paws off in a pail of warm water or the bathtub or some other easily accessible spot. It doesn’t need to be a big production; a plastic container by the door with warm water and a quick dunk and swish of each paw for a moment will do the trick. Dry the pup’s paws with a towel and check for evidence of dry, cracked skin on the pads. If you see this, apply a pet-appropriate natural moisturizer. Human skin care products may be toxic to dogs if licked off their paws and cause a mess in your home as they walk around.

• When out walking avoid municipal areas such as public sidewalks downtown, parking lots etc. as much as possible. Municipalities are going to use the most inexpensive and easy to acquire ice melt products, which are usually the most caustic, and they are likely going to apply it liberally in these areas. This goes for park pathways too.

• Use pet-safe/environmentally friendly ice melt on your own home walk-ways, steps and driveway, as well as any public sidewalks in front of your home. Try to educate neighbors about how bad the chemical stuff is for the animals and encourage them to join you in using safer alternatives. There are many very good pet friendly products on the market now and they have come down in price significantly over the past few years. They are still usually more expensive than traditional stuff, but it’s worth the price, and they are pretty effective at melting the ice.

• Clean your sidewalks and walkways immediately after a snow event. Besides the fact that most local municipalities have a 24 hour ordinance regarding snow removal from public sidewalks in front of your home, it just makes good sense and it’s the right thing to do as a good neighbor. Shoveling while the snow is fresh is much easier and you are able to cleanly get down to the pavement before other people have walked on it and packed it down into ice. If you use a snow blower to remove large depths of snow, go back over it with a shovel to get all traces cleared down to pavement so that the layer snow-blowers leave behind doesn’t turn to a slippery coating of ice.  Put down pet friendly ice melt immediately and your neighborhood pedestrians, with dogs and without, will love you and appreciate your efforts at keeping them safe.

• You can always try to put something on the dog’s feet to protect them. There are several products out now such as ‘Musher’s Wax’ that you can coat the bottom of your dog’s paws with. They seem to work with varying degrees of success. It can be a challenge to get the dogs to allow you to apply, and you need to do it immediately before you walk out the door or it will come off on the carpets and floors in your home as the dog walks around.  Be sure to get a product that won’t leave greasy stains in your home.

• And last but certainly not least: the Mother of all solutions: Dog Booties. All I can say about booties is that the concept is great, and they are cute, but as far as practicality I have seen extremely limited success in their usage over the years. If you want to give it a shot buy a good solid pair (don’t go for “fashion” here, go for functionality: waterproof, durable, will they stay on etc.).  Ease your dog into wearing them gently and over a period of a few days or a week, inside the home for short increments at a time, starting with one foot at a time and gradually building up their tolerance for it. Use lots of treats and positive reinforcement, and eventually you may be one of the few folks who can actually manage to get their dog to walk wearing boots. Just don’t spend too much money, because even the best ones have a tendency to come off and get lost in snow banks (of course, that’s *if* you can even get the dog to let you put them on!).

Ease your dog into walking with boots

Video compilation of dogs wearing boots

Good luck with the winter!

Author's note: The accompanying photo is of a generic dog I found on the internet. I have no clue who this pooch is. I couldn't get a pic of my own dog wearing boots....because she refuses to put them on. EVER.

(Deirdre Curran is a local Dog Walker/Pet Sitter serving the Rye, Rye Brook-Port Chester area since 2003. )