Winter at Last!

So it looks like our first real taste of winter here in Rochester because it was COLD last night. Lance and Funyon (my dogs) who usually prefer to spend frigid evenings laying in front of the pellet stove to being anywhere wet or cold, begrudgingly went on their evening walk. Once I was bundled and they were leashed, their attitudes changed as the walk became super exciting as not only was it garbage day providing interesting smells all along the route but there were lots of newly discarded Christmas trees for them to sniff. Soon though, the winter limps started. Every couple hundred feet a paw would go up full of salt or ice-ball and we would stop and they would wait patiently as I warmed and cleaned out the affected paw. Poor Funyon had 2 paws raised at one point and he just kept walking (really more like hoping) along with one front leg and one back leg. It didn’t slow him down in the least. I think today we will walk the woods path instead and see if this takes care of those winter limps as I suspect the irritating salt is the big issue. Sometimes I try to rinse their paws off when we get home because if they lick salt off their paws it can make them sick and if they accidentally were to step in antifreeze and try to lick it off, well that can be deadly. At one point, I tried booties but the dogs just laughed at them and said we will not wear these ridiculous things as they kicked them off and trotted on their merry way.