Winter Gear guide

Well, winter smacked us in the face.

We were woefully unprepared for winter suddenly deciding to get real in Toronto. It was a scramble to dig out our winter gear or freeze our butts off. I forgot to put a snow brush in the car and had to resort to shoveling the car out of snow with a spare life jacket in the trunk and scrape off the ice with an empty water bottle. Great start to winter.

Having gone through a few winters with a Horton, we wanted to share our favorite gear for humans and doggos to help get you through those cold winter walkies.

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Gear for Doggos

Harness

We love using the X harness or Easy Harness from SpottedByHumphrey all year round, but especially during winter for two reasons. These harnesses are super easy to put on and take off, and it’s not too chunky to wear under their winter jackets. The adjustable X-harness also means you can wear it on top of chunkier winter jackets as well! Because there’s not much undercarriage fabric to the harness, if it does get wet in the snow it also dries very quickly. But also, can an we appreciate how sleek the design is?

Use code HORTONHAZEL for 10% off your order at SpottedByHumphrey

Outerwear

For coats, we primarily wear Canada Pooch parkas and sweaters. Canada pooch always comes out with great quality stuff in amazing designs. We’ve had the same hoodie for 4 years now and it still looks great! We’ve been loving the maroon Alaskan Army Parka and leopard print Northern Knit sweater for Hazel this year. The Northern Knit is a great option for warmer winter walks. The zipper harness opening really makes it easy for us to get ready and go! The heavier Alaskan parka really provides that added warmth with it’s fleece lining when it’s super cold. And of course, both look absolutely great!

Horton wears size 14+ and Hazel wears size 14. The plus size is perfect for barrel chested frenchies as its the same length as size 14 but has extra room around the chest.

To Bootie or Not to Bootie?

Imagine this: You’re finished your winter walk and you finally get home to warm up. When you get around to the feeties you realize he/she only has 3 of 4 of those fancy booties you bought still on. How mad would you be? Cause that’s happened to us. You might as well throw out the three you have left out, unless you want to buy another set. Now some brands of dog booties are sold in packs of two, so it might be easier to replace. BUT STILL. We also find the fancier, structured booties all come in the same size but typically the front paws are larger than the back ones so you end up with two booties that don’t fit very well. Those are two reasons why we use the plastic balloon booties from Pawz. With the plastic booties, they can stretch and still protect their feet from all the sidewalk salt which is our main concern. These are a little tricky to figure out how to get on, but once you have they’re a breeze! These come in a pack of 12 which lasts us all winter!

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Gear for Hoomans

Gloves

Gloves are pretty essential when you’re taking walks in the winter. Having to hold a cold leash in the chill of winter is really not fun. Especially in Canada where the wind chill can make it feel like -15 or more.

We cycle between two pairs of gloves depending on the weather We use the Canada Pooch Dog Walking Gloves for quick, warmer winter walks. These gloves are thin, have touch screen capability and have a grippy palm to ensure you have a solid hold on your leash. For colder, longer walks we use the Best Friend Apparel Walkease gloves. These are thicker and are super heavy duty. There’s a felt thumb so you can wipe off any snot off your face (admit it, it happens), and a secret pocket on the back of the glove to hold a poop bag, how clever!

Headgear! With a light if you’re extra ;)

It’s really hard to find those hidden poops in the snow under bushes on winter nights. Hort loves to hide his poop wayyy under the bushes. It’s like he’s ashamed of his poops and doesn’t want me to watch him. Fine, I don’t watch but that also means I dunno where the poop is most of the time. Its like a little hide and go poop game that Horton and I play. I’m quite an expert at the game now but I do need some help. So this might seem extra, but I have a toque with a LED light on it when I really have to get up under the bushes to find his poop. I’ve knocked snow down the back of my neck into my jacket so many times trying to get under those bushes, I sub-concsiously brace myself for a chill down my spine every time.

We got ours from Amazon!

Leash

We LOVE our Litto Howler Kubo multi leash. It’s such a versatile, heavy duty leash made of mountain climber rope and auto-locking carabiners for extra security. The most amazing feature which has been a game changer for us with two dogs, is that it will never tangle even if the pups criss-cross each other (watch the video to see what I mean)! The leashes are attached to a swivel head so even if they cross each other, it means it will untangle automatically. We bought an extra connector so that we can add it to the handle to convert it into a cross body. My hands are always in my pocket now unless I’m filming the pups during their walkies or trying to dig sticks out of Hazels mouth.

Let me know if you’ve used any of the products we’ve mentioned. We’d love to know your experiences with trying to cope with winter!

When Horton met Hazel

The day Hurricane Hazel rolled into our lives, our lives changed forever. Socks were destroyed, peace and quiet was no more, devastation ensued. But we would have it no other way.

We knew we wanted a second frenchie but we had so many questions and concerns about adding another to our lives, as well as Hortons’. Would Horton get jealous? How will he react? Would they get along? Thinking back to how Horton completely changed our lives and our daily routines, we knew it would be an adjustment but we thought it was the right time.

First Day Home

For the 2 hour car ride home, Hazel sniffed her blankie and looked in every nook and cranny of her car seat. When she was satisfied that she’d sniffed all the smells, and had seen all that can be seen, she crawled into my lap and slept like a sweet little cream bear, exhausted from taking in her new surroundings.

We had put Hazel in a little Christmas box to bring her home. Extra, I know. But it was days before Christmas, and a puppy in a box was what I wanted for Christmas as a kid, so what the heck, doing it. My inner child was jumping for joy. Anyways, when we walked through the door with Hazel, Horton didn’t seem to notice. Once we put the box down, boy did he notice.

Once Horton got his sniffs in, we took her out of her box so she could explore her new home. We could already tell she was a brave little girl, trying to get behind the cabinets, running circles around the Christmas tree and introducing herself to all the dust bunnies under the couch. Like, oh hey, how ya doin’, nice to nom you. Horton kind of stood back and watched while this baby rat ran around the house, getting into all the nooks and crannies he was forbidden to explore, wondering how is it getting away with this??

Getting used to Each Other

Horton has known a life without Hazel, but Hazel hasn’t. So we knew Hazel would adjust quickly (which she did), but that it would take more time for Horton to. She had no sense of how smol she was, but her big sassy personality made up for that. It didn’t take long for Hazel to start tackling Horton like a linebacker. But Horton, being the gentle patient boy he is, just let her attack him! So much so that her sharp puppy teeth were cutting up his cheeks :( At one point, I was screaming “Horton kick her ass! Show her who’s boss!”, but as it turns out, Hazel was and still is the boss.

A week in, I swear Horton was thinking ok, when is she going away now? Sorry bud, don’t have an answer for you on that one.

The sibling rivalry was pretty real pretty fast. Hazel being the little bulldozer that she was, stole every toy, slept in every bed and took every opportunity she could to steal our attention in the loudest most sassy fashion possible. The making of #HurricaneHazel. It should be a documentary.

But, there were moments of peace and quiet where they would snuggle up and have a little snoozle together. I live for those sweet moments.

Challenges

Ever hear people say “Oh, the first dog will just train the second one!” or “A second dog is not that much more work”. Lies, all lies. Maybe it’s the huge difference in their personalities, or we’ve just forgotten how hard it is to train a puppy, but Hazel really put us through our paces.

One of the things that we worried about was meal time. We wanted to make sure that neither of them developed food aggression. We made it a point to feed them together pretty much immediately to teach Horton that it’s ok if shes around when he’s eating. One problem we didn’t anticipate, was that Hazel ate much faster than Horton. She’d hoover her food and then stick her snooter in Hortons food. And again, Horton being a pushover, didn’t do anything but bury his head in his food and try to eat around her face.

Three little piggies

We could tell Horton was getting jealous of Hazel. I think all siblings feel some sort of jealous towards one another, but we wanted to make sure Horton didn’t get too jealous that it turned into resentment. So we try to make sure he gets individual time with us - I take him to the gym on the weekends, and Daddio takes him for morning coffees in the park. There are also the little things we try to do to make Horton feel special. We try to give Horton treats first when they’re both begging for snackos and he gets the primo snuggle spots on our lap and in the bed.

Speaking of bed, we don’t know how this happened or maybe we do and we’ve chosen to block it out, but the two of them always seem to end up upstairs in the bed with us. This is not so much a challenge for them, as it is for us. The moment we turn off the lights in the living room, they’re at the bottom of the stairs giving me puppy eyes, waiting for me to move the gate to let them upstairs. Turning off the lights is like a reverse bat signal to them. The bed is calling to be warmed, and the dogs answer that call. They win most nights. We’re weak what can I say.

We’re still adjusting to life with Hazel even though we’ve had her for 9 months now. Horton has (mostly) stopped walking away when she snuggles into bed with him. We’ve (mostly) figured out what routine works best for her. Progress!

Does anyone relate to any of this? Do you have any questions? Comment below and I’ll be sure to get back to you!