Walking during winter can pose various hazards to your dog’s paws, such as ice and snow, road salts, and sharp debris. You can enhance your dog’s winter experience and reduce the risks by teaching them how to wear boots.
In winter, there are several dangers that we wish to protect our dogs from, prompting us to outfit them with boots.
Though training your dog to wear winter boots may appear to be a futile and vexing effort, investing time in educating them about how to wear boots can result in enabling your pet to engage in a plethora of outdoor activities and navigate the weather safely.
While dog boots may appear silly, there is a thriving market for dog winter boots due to their immense usefulness. Though winter dog boots offer numerous advantages, if you don’t train your dog to trust and wear them correctly, they will likely be ineffective or frustrating.
Why Do Dogs Need Winter Boots?
Winter weather conditions such as frigid temperatures, snow, icy surfaces, and chemicals used for melting ice can all have detrimental effects on your dog’s paws. It is crucial to invest in winter boots for your furry friend for various significant reasons, including:
- Protection against the weather.
- Protection against injury.
- Protection against chemicals in the environment.
Winter boots are essential to safeguarding your dog’s paws during cold weather due to their susceptibility to damage caused by the low temperatures. The harsh conditions can lead to the cracking and bleeding of your pet’s paw pads, and in severe cases, even frostbite may develop in their toes.
Although less apparent, safeguarding against injuries resulting from the surroundings is crucial. A dog’s paws can get easily cut up by rocks concealed under snowdrifts. Ice splinters are barely discernible but can inflict significant harm and agony.
How to Train Your Dog to Wear Boots
To successfully teach your dog to wear winter boots, it is important to proceed according to their individual comfort level. For instance, if your dog is not accustomed to wearing footwear and is abruptly forced into wearing snug and unyielding boots, they will be displeased.
It is advisable to gradually acquaint the dogs with the boots to prevent negative associations. Below are uncomplicated procedures for teaching your dog to use winter footwear.
Associate the Boots With a Reward
Begin by familiarizing your dog with the boots. Ensure that the boots are present, give your dog a chance to smell them, and enable them to perceive that the boots pose no threat. Always have miniature canine training snacks handy so that you can acknowledge your dog whenever they come near or examine the boots.
In due course, your canine will link the boots with a delicious treat and eagerly anticipate their presence. This will facilitate the subsequent actions.
Practice Touching Paws
If you sit next to your dog when they are in a happy and calm state, try playing with their paws. This will help familiarize them with being touched and handled, making them less resistant to wearing boots in the future.
Ensure that the experience is positive by refraining from being aggressive or getting frustrated if your dog displays displeasure when its paws are being touched for the first time. When your dog permits you to touch its paw, provide a delicious and small treat as a reward.
Keep their Nails Trimmed
Keeping your dog’s nails trimmed regularly can improve the comfort level of their boots and simplify the process of putting them on or taking them off. If your canine’s nails are too long, you’ll encounter difficulty in finding the appropriate boot size for them.
If nails are long, they can curve and lead to discomfort in the paws, especially if they push against the interior of the boot. While a bigger boot size can accommodate longer nails, it may also cause the boot to fit loosely, resulting in sliding and twisting as the animal walks.
One Boot at a Time
Begin by putting on one boot at a time, swiftly removing and replacing the first boot when putting it on for the first time to educate your dog that the boots are not a permanent fixture or a penalty. Gradually prolong the duration that the dog wears the boot while rewarding with nutritious treats as long as the boots are kept on.
At this time, you should permit your dog to roam the house wearing their boot(s) while keeping an eye on them and motivating them to keep walking since they may attempt to remove the boot or decline to walk.
Practice Indoors
After your dog puts on all four boots, let them walk around indoors until they feel at ease wearing them. You can engage in activities such as tag or indoor fetch with your furry friend to encourage them to walk or run fast.
Using the boots will assist them in normalizing their walking. Expect the initial trials to appear comical, so don’t forget your camera!
Examining your dog’s gait and how their paws make contact with the ground will enable you to ascertain whether the boots are appropriately sized and contoured for their paws. If the dog boots do not fit well or have an improper shape, your dog will walk abnormally, even after getting used to walking in them.
Before taking your dog outside, it’s advised to practice indoors for a few days. In case you realize that the boots are not suitable for your dog after they have been worn outside, returning them might not be a possibility.
Don’t Stop Moving
The moment has arrived to explore the outdoors! Begin with brief strolls and gradually prolong your time outdoors. Despite repeated training, your dog may still not enjoy wearing the shoes. It is advisable to keep your dog moving or occupied once the boots are on.
Stopping could result in your dog attempting to remove the boots. It is necessary for them to continue walking so they can adjust and realize that their paws remain dry and warm when walking in winter environments.
Be Patient
It is crucial to bear in mind that each dog learns and acclimatizes at their own pace, with some dogs being able to wear boots in just a few days, while others may take weeks before they can go outside for the first time.
In order to make a dog feel more comfortable wearing boots, it is essential to maintain patience and consistency throughout the training process, with the ultimate objective of increasing their comfort, not decreasing it.
It involves proceeding at the dog’s speed and ensuring that they are comfortable with every stage of adapting to their new outfit. Certain dogs even find wearing boots preferable to prevent their paws from getting wet or cold.
BONUS: Dog training 101 — How to set realistic goals and where to get started
Dog training can be categorized into two main levels. For those who want to teach their dogs basic manners and skills, such as sitting, staying, and lying down, a dog trainer is the appropriate professional to seek help from. Meanwhile, for pooch owners who encounter behavioral issues with their dogs, such as fearfulness, anxiety, or aggressiveness, a dog behavioral consultant like Brianna Dick of Pack Leader Help would be the perfect expert to approach.
“The way that I approach dog training is behavioral psychology based,” says Dick, who is a member of the International Association of Canine Professionals. “We’re not looking at just the physical behaviors of dogs. We’re looking at their emotions and the relationship they have with their humans.”
To address both skills training and behavior training, it is recommended to begin with the more intricate one, which is typically behavior training. While a dog trainer may have knowledge on how to teach your dog to sit, a dog behavior consultant is better equipped to assist with issues of separation anxiety.
Be realistic.
Fratt’s statement emphasizes that similar to how every person may not enjoy attending raves, not all dogs may develop a liking for dog parks.
Kim Brophey, who owns The Dog Door Behavior Center and authored “Meet Your Dog: The Game Changing Guide To Understanding Your Dog’s Behavior,” is an applied ethologist and a family dog mediator. Brophey employs a framework known as L.E.G.S (learning, environment, genetics, self) to illustrate dog behavior, such as when your dog is barking at your guests.
Brophey suggests that the particular type of dog might have been specifically chosen over a span of hundreds of years to guard against intruders entering through the front door. As it is impossible to eliminate the innate inclination of German shepherds to protect their space, you may have to modify your assumptions.
Decide how you’d like to train your dog.
There are various types of training methods available, including group classes, one-on-one training, board and train, day training and self-led training. Of these, group classes are less expensive but offer less individual attention. Fratt warns that board and train options come with greater expense and risk.
“If the trainer spends all this time training the dog in this really specific context and then basically just hands you the leash, takes your check and walks away, there’s a very good chance you’re not actually going to be able to implement those new strategies and skills … successfully in your home.”
Your selection will be influenced by your budget and the objectives of your training. Training that is outside of your home may not be appropriate if your dog is displaying aggressive behavior towards another dog in your household.
Keep in mind that you will need to participate in your dog’s training, but it doesn’t have to consume a significant portion of your schedule. According to Fratt, she only devotes around five minutes every day to training her dog. Additionally, many of the exercises that trainers assign can be enjoyable and seamlessly incorporated into your daily routine.
Our experts recommend accessing online resources that are free or low-cost to train your dog if you want to avoid spending a significant amount of money.
- Kikopup on Youtube and Instagram
- Fenzi Dog Sports Academy
- K9 of Mine
On her website, Dick has put together several resources that are available for free, while Fratt has a set of complimentary lessons called Training Tuesday.
Understand the methodologies.
The field of dog training lacks regulation, allowing individuals with a website, Instagram page, or storefront to declare themselves as dog trainers. Consequently, there is no established set of guidelines dictating which techniques are suitable for dog training, resulting in varying opinions among trainers. Nonetheless, most trainers can be categorized into two major groups.
One type of dog trainers who use positive reinforcement techniques, such as Fratt, reward dogs for good behavior with treats or something enjoyable. This encourages them to repeat the positive behavior or change their perception of something that scares them by associating it with a positive experience.
Another type of trainer that exists is balanced trainers such as Brianna Dick. These trainers embrace positive reinforcement techniques, yet are also open to integrating corrective measures such as e-collars in their training.
According to Dick, E-collar training necessitates the use of a collar on your dog that can be controlled using a remote to provide stimulation to the neck of your dog, such as a shock, sound, or citronella spray when a correction is necessary. E-collars are a contentious issue in the dog training world, particularly those that emit a shock.
According to Dick, it’s important to be cautious of trainers who rely on e-collars for every dog because this approach is generic and ineffective. Instead, you should look for a trainer who takes the time to understand you, your bond with your dog, and your daily routine together.
Find a good trainer.
A helpful starting point for finding reliable positive reinforcement or balanced trainers in your locality is to refer to the lists created by different professional organizations. Numerous professional associations have compiled such lists.
- International Association of Animal Behavior Consultants (IAABC)
- Certification Council for Professional Dog Trainers (CCPDT)
- The Association of Professional Dog Trainers (APDT)
- Karen Pryor Academy (KPA)
- Pet Professional Guild
- The Academy for Dog Trainers
- Pat Miller Certified Trainers
Afterward, conduct interviews! Get in touch with previous customers. Evaluate which trainer gives you the greatest ease. Verify their capability to elucidate their training approaches.
