When Is It Too Cold to Walk the Dog? Use This Handy Guide for Reference
Dogington Post
By Brandy Arnold
Posted on Dec 2, 2020
It’s an issue pet parents face every winter – it’s freezing outside, but the dogs still need their daily exercise. At what point is it too cold to walk the dog?
Dr. Kim Smyth, a staff veterinarian with pet insurance company Petplan, is asked this very question every winter, so she created a chart based on the assessment scale developed at Tufts University.
This handy chart is pretty straightforward: Just find the outdoor temperature, factor in the wind chill and how cold it actually feels, then look consider your dog’s size. Green (1-2) means it’s safe to go outside – have fun!; Yellow (3) means you should take caution as there is a slight potential for dangerous conditions; Orange (4) is likely dangerous and will require extra precautions; And red (5) is potentially life-threatening cold and any prolonged outdoor activity should be avoided.
Of course, you’ll also want to consider your dogs’ own health, lifestyle, and preference for the cold. But, as a general rule, Smyth says, “Under 30 degrees, factoring in the wind chill, it’s not going to be safe for any dog to be outside for an extended period of time.”
Of course, every dog is different. But, even if your dog loves being outside in winter weather – and temperatures aren’t too dangerously low to allow for a quick walk – dog owners should still follow a few simple precautions to stay safe:
See this very handy reference chart and additional tips here: https://www.dogingtonpost.com/too-cold-to-walk-the-dog-reference/
(I would post the chart if I knew how!)
My dog seems to want to walk no matter how cold it is. He's a lot tougher than I am.
Happy walking!
= new reply since forum marked as read
low temps, but I'm not one of them. It was about 25 F give or take, with a breeze.
This morning I was talking to my dog, Sweetheart, for god's sake, haven't you had enough? Isn't it time to go home?... Is it time to go home yet?, talking like a crazy person on an empty street. My dog likes to stop and sniff everything. Maybe if we had done more walking and less sniffing it wouldn't have seemed so cold.
Depends on the locale, the type of dog, the walking habits, physical health, and acclimatization--and WIND. And the controlling limiting factor is usually ME and not the dog, who would be otherwise content to lie in deep snow in 20-degree weather. But, we do our four-mile walks in nearly all cold extremes, with doggy booties only coming into play at 10 degrees or lower temperature, when the PAM sprayed on the feet no longer does the trick.
But, yeah, wind. That makes a tremendous difference, not only in the perceived temperature, general "comfort," but ability to regulate body temperature in subfreezing conditions.
But this is when the acclimatized, physically active dog is continually moving and under supervision. Sending a dog out to the backyard in extreme cold, snow, ice where they are not, can be a totally different issue.
Heat is a different story. Like Rorey upstream, we go for long walks pre-dawn in the hot months and then nothing major until way after sundown. Like becoming vampires. 
My Murphy's coat was thick and heavy. He appeared to be a Chow/Shepherd mix. At first we left his coat alone. He really seemed to suffer, so we decided to try a haircut. My then-husband took him to get him groomed, and he was so upset by how he looked he was practically crying. He thought it was way too short, and it really was very short.
But Murphy LOVED it! He acted like a puppy! So we started getting him two cuts a year, once in the spring and once mid-summer. We'd let it get longer over the winter because he loved being outside so much. Many times in the dead of winter I'd look outside in the night and see him laying all stretched out on the snow. He had a dog door so he could come and go as he liked. We always turned the heat way down at night to try to get him to stay in more, but it was clear where he wanted to be.
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