Too Cold for Doggies!

German Shepherds generally like cold weather much better than they like hot weather, but I expect there does need to be a certain amount of acclimating when it's really cold, esp. if they're inside most of the time in the winter, as mine are.

It's really cold here--single digits during the day, below zero at night. Thank goodness there's not much wind. At any rate, we haven't been going out much, just to potty mostly. Timber really wanted to go out to play today, so rather unwillingly I bundled up and took them out.

Taenzer did her usual running around and pushing her ball and seemed to be doing just fine. But I noticed that Timber was standing with his right back foot off the ground. I asked him if he was okay, and he sat down, then laid down and chewed on his jolly ball a little bit, so I went back to watching Taenzer. When I looked at Timber again, he was standing again, holding his right back foot up higher than ever. Then he put it down and lifted his left front foot. Then he sat down and lifted (or tried to lift) his right front AND right back foot. I'm sorry to say I burst out laughing--it looked very funny. But I felt bad for him, so I put my blanket away and brought them back inside.

Poor Mr. T and his little cold feet! You'd think all that fur between his toes would insulate them a little bit, but apparently not.

I wish I could find something they enjoyed doing inside. Stella loved playing the smell-it/find-it game, but neither Taenzer nor Timber seem to enjoy it much. Taenzer gets all hyperactive and brings things at random, and Timber is very dutiful about it but it doesn't seem to be *fun* for him. I guess I could get a new buster cube--I seem to have lost the old one. We have a tug-a-jug, but of course, with two dogs, I need two treat-dispensers. Hmmmm--off to surf dog toy sites!