Keeping dogs safe outside during Winter

MANKATO, Minn. (KEYC) -

With Winter’s frigid temperatures upon us, we still need to care for our furry-four legged friends. Dogs have different cold sensitivity depending on their breed. Just because they have fur does not mean they’re well-suited for the cold.

Lynn Davey of Key City Kennel Club said “The warmest ones are going to be the ones with what we call the double coat; the finer softer under layer, and then the courser guard on the top versus say a beagle or a chihuahua that just has one kind of hair growing out of them.”

According to Veterinarian Tim Klein, a dog that lives outside is already acclimated to the weather-- but need larger amounts of care; including more food, maintaining weight, and a place to go that’s dry and out of the wind. when someone reports a concern to police about the care of a dog, they send out a community service officer to investigate.

Klein said “Just because the dog’s outside, doesn’t automatically mean that it’s not humane as long as he’s being well cared for with those common sense things, you know like think of the sled dogs, you know, Alaska, they’re extremely resilient as long as they’re cared for properly.”

Dan Schisel the Associate Director of Public Safety said “There there’s things that we would teach them to look for and then if it would appear that it’s animal neglect and we would have that conversation and/or send over any type of requested charges.”

Klein says that the most common type of injury they see during winter is abrasion to their snouts and pawpad due to sharp snow crust.

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