Our Pets, Salt and Winter

Growing up in Michigan taught me all about driving and going outside in below freezing temperatures. However, this winter, I have had to educate myself about the cold weather’s effect on a new member of the Pasciak family, our eight-month-old puppy.  Over the past several years, my wife continually pushed for us to get a dog, but as someone who never had a dog growing up, I was hesitant.  However, this past summer, my mother-in-law saw a red female golden retriever for sale, which is exactly what my wife wanted.  As they say, the rest is history.

My wife grew up with dogs, cats and even pigs, so she was already well aware of the responsibilities and joy associated with owning an animal.  I was quickly amazed with our little puppy’s personality and how quickly I became attached to her.  However, this also required me to do some research regarding how to best take care of our new family member.

One day in January, I was taking our puppy for a morning walk when she started sitting down more often and refusing to walk on one of her paws.  This trend continued the following morning, and I decided to search the Internet to figure out what was wrong.  The odd thing was that she loved the snow, had been outside for much longer on colder days, and never had a problem with cold weather.  I read several articles discussing the importance of taking pets inside during the cold winter months, but I could not figure out why her paws were hurting her on our walks and not when she was running around freely.

Finally, I came across an article discussing salt’s effects on dog’s paws.  Based on my research, prolonged contact with salt can cause irritation and, in extreme circumstances, chemical burns on a dog’s paw.  Moreover, the salt used on roads and sidewalks is usually not the same salt a person would find on their French fries.  While the salt is effective for clearing our roads, it should not be consumed, which creates a concern for dogs licking their salty paws.

We have not had any problems since finding this information and now try to walk on the snow/grass and avoid salt patches.  While this may be old information to some dog owners, it was new to me, and I thought passing it on may be helpful to some of our readers.

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