Jump to content
BC Boards

Winter Clothing


Recommended Posts

Not only is coat length (rough versus smooth) a possible consideration, but so is the presence or absence of a significant undercoat, along with the texture of the guard hairs and undercoat.

 

Two of my dogs have guard hairs that shed the rain somewhat well, and the third has very soft guard hair (and a good bit of very soft undercoat) and her coat just soaks it up (and takes much longer to dry out).

 

My longest-coated dog has hardly any undercoat. If he was not so active outside, he'd benefit from a dog coat when the temperatures drop. As it is, I only coat him when it's under 20 F.

 

And while rough-coated dogs can have lots to little coat, so can smooth-coated dogs, varying from little undercoat to a very dense undercoat.

 

The Aussies we have had, all working-bred, had much thicker, denser coats with hairs that were slightly crimped if you looked very, very closely - they were mud magnets, did not self-clean like the Border Collies tend to do, and once they got wet, took plenty of time to dry out.

 

Variability - it's what happens!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I have never been the type of person to put clothes on a dog. Oh, maybe a bandanna for a special occasion, or for Freestyle dancing. But not otherwise.

 

But now I have this little terrier. I live in a very warm place, but I noticed the first 2 years I had this dog that all the hair fell off his ears every year around April.

Figuring it was the cold, even though it only goes below freezing a few times each winter, I designed an ultra-warm hat for him which, along with a warm coat, he now wears every time he goes outdoors any time the temperature is below 45 degrees. I know it sounds really silly, but since I have been doing that the hair never falls off his ears any more.

 

My border collies have never had hair fall off their ears. Nor any other dog I have had. I suppose it is because their ears are thicker, maybe have more fur, but it still puzzles me that this happens to my terrier. I have not heard of this being a common thing among terriers. (but I really don't know a lot about terriers).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

^ I wonder if your terrier has some metabolic issue that make him less tolerant to cold. Perhaps low thyroid? I'm in the Northeast where it can get pretty cold in the winter (though nothing like the upper midwest. I think Fargo ND's forecast high for today was -5F!) but I never really used to get cold in the winter. Now that my thyroid's low I get cold, really cold, at temps I wouldn't even have registered as cold before.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

We use pawz booties and sweaters. It's pretty cold here in Illinois, and they have trouble walking outside without the booties. What's nice about the pawz booties is that they are rubber and the dogs aren't bothered by them. They are also easy to put on.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 years later...
On 12/14/2017 at 9:15 PM, waffles said:

Yikes, what a reaction. I never said they were the same temperature. I answered the OP's question of "when do you put clothes on your dogs in the winter" and the answer was never. I then typed a little antidote about today's weather and walk. The OP is free to do as they wish but I responded to their question. Guess I'll go back to not responding much on these boards as no one enjoys being called out by name for such a benign post as winter clothes on dogs.

Oh relax

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

 Share

×
×
  • Create New...