Coldest You'll Walk Your Dogs/Let Them Out?

I always hear varying things about how well shelties/dogs in general tolerate the cold. With two layers of fur, Fasb has never shivered or acted particularly cold and we've been out in some cold weather. My big worry is his paws and frostbite.

Why do some of you let your dogs out in the yard when it's cold, but not the street? Salt? I almost think it'd be better to walk on the street which is usually plowed) than get his feet and fur wet in the snowy yard.

One thing I should mention is that mine doesn't like to go bathroom in his own yard and has almost never used the bathroom on our property. We usually walk to the other side of the block.

What's a reasonable amount of time to be out in this sort of weather? I'd say 10-15 minutes is about what we're outside in the cold. We're never more than a few minutes away from our home, so, if worse comes to worse, I could pick him up and cut through the yards to get back quickly.

It just sort of happened. When we got him, we noticed he would have "accidents" in the basement. His original owner (my sister-in-law) trained him, but was generally pretty lax, so I think maybe he did this in her house and thought it was normal. At first, we tried to break him of the habit, but we're not good disciplinarians either (mostly me), and we decided it might be ok for him to have an option when we're not home, bad weather, illness, etc. We just started putting pads or newspapers where he was going anyway, then trained him to go wherever we put the pad (then we moved it to a less visible corner).

It's not really something I'd recommend - or something I would have imagined we would tolerate - but it works for us. He doesn't go indoors very often, but we feel better knowing he has the option and it tends to eliminate "accidents" upstairs (where we don't want him to go).

 

Yeah, I worry about him getting salt in his paws too, but, fortunately, I live in a subdivision where no one salts the street or sidewalks. I throw salt out in the driveway once in a while, but usually only on the far side of the drive so Fasb doesn't accidentally get into it.