Winter Potty

This was the coldest weekend in January so far this year. As January is Chicago's coldest month, and it gets pretty cold here, it was a COLD one. We had temperatures drop to -18F (feels like) and -5 Fahrenheit its pretty cold. And the dog walking gets pretty short.

I have observed a peculiar thing in our puppy. When taken out first day of the cold spell, after a few minutes he started lifting his paws and holding them up. He actually looked like his paws were freezing! Of course this is unconfirmed but its strange.

Now I have heard or read somewhere that Huskies and big sled dogs don't have feeling in the tips of their paws and they can survive the deep freeze without feeling it. Unfortunately our dog is a shichon (also called a Zuchon) a descendant of the ShiTzu and a Bichon. I doubt that his ancestors had developed this survival component.

So until it warms up to at least to 15 F degrees we will have to make our potty outings breef. Interestingly he has started picking up the speed in which he decides to get his business done. There is a bright side to taking the dog out in blistery and bitter cold of the winter.

Dog Adolescence

So we have our puppy potty trained. He is very good at home, and hasn't had
an accident for over two months.

However we have found that he is only potty trained at home. When I take
him to the office for an extended amount of time he does not abide by the
same rules he was taught at home. He does go out if he is taken for a walk,
but he is unable to hold it in the office. We thought that he would
eventually stat following potty rules that he learned at home, however today
was the last straw on that hope.

I believe a re-training is in order for a new location. We'll keep you
posted on the progress.