22 Comments on “The Cold Weather Pee Loop”

1. Oh. Not what I expected. I thought you meant the cold weather pee loop I experience (possibly TMI):

   I go out in the cold. This makes me need to pee.
   I come back in and pee, then wash my hands.
   Running cold water over my hands makes me need to pee…

   ad infinitum. No wonder I’m chronically dehydrated.

2. I’ve never had a pet who went more then 5 feet from the deck to pee, in the snow. Also, yes, I sympathize.

3. It’s better than the loop my dog makes when it’s raining – the ‘I don’t need to pee that badly’ loop, which doesn’t make it to the porch stairs. Eventually ‘I don’t need to pee that badly’ does become ‘oh hell, I’ll have to get wet’ and she makes a loop about like that one.

4. My family once had a dog with thick, thick fur. After doing her business in the cold, she would find a a bare spot on the lawn, lie down, and fold her paws under her body. She always seemed perfectly happy in that position, no matter how cold it was. It could be a bit of a fight to get her to stand up and come in!

5. Also, snow, a novelty to my Alabama born and raised dog, does not bother my dog nearly as much as rain. She will happily run out and do her usual wanderings while it falls or is on the ground. However, I’ve never seen her lay down in it like JDF’s dog.

6. Ours play and roll in the snow and then bring us slush and mud to enjoy in the house.

7. Ah, yes. Our loop looks the same. It’s impressive how a loop so small can take such a long time. First, our dog will stand just outside the door and look at me as though saying, “Are you nuts? You want me to walk into THAT?” Only after minutes of wooing her toward the white stuff and her dancing on cold paws will she make the loop of winter.

8. Did Zeus go out for entertainment or for camaraderie?

9. Plus, when you add the other business, it does a good job of killing the grass. I realized what Al Capp was referring to when he named Li’l Abner’s town “Dogpatch”.

10. When my inlaws brought their German shepherd puppy home some 14-plus years ago (we lost her last year, alas), they were living in a house with a backyard pool. She bounded out of my MIL’s arms, went racing into the yard–and promptly fell into the pool. From that day forward, she refused to get in the pool. She felt much the same about rain. My MIL’s a bit of a softie, and on days when Valkyrie flatly refused to go out in pouring rain (we live in Houston, which gets lots of rain during hurricane season), my MIL would place lots of newspaper on the floor in the rarely-used formal living room, and let her do her thing in there. Yes, the living room is a rather odd place to lay newspaper, but my inlaws learned from experience that if Valkyrie wouldn’t do her thing in the yard, the living room, not the utility room, was her preferred spot.

11. We owned a southern-born Lab when we moved back to the Midwest, and he spent every winter for the rest of his life desperately hoping that he’d walk outdoors and somehow find himself transported back to balmy southern climes.

    We’d let him out at this time of year, and he’d trudge from the side door back to the garage, where he’d mince alongside the length of it, hugging the clapboards to stay in the shallowest snow right by the slab. Upon reaching the far end, he’d do his business as quickly as possible, then come tearing back to the side door, whining in his eagerness to come back indoors and warm up his poor chilly paws (and other things).

    Poor fellow never did develop any real liking for a Midwestern winter. I suspect he’d sympathize with Daisy.

12. Our dog requires a shoveled path. The woes of weighing ten pounds and having short little legs.

13. Our first dog was very unhappy with snow, unsurprisingly considering we moved from Texas. Probably didn’t help the first big storm he saw he tried jumping over the snow that had packed up at the back door and proceeded to sink about a foot into said snow unmentionables-first. Afterwards he always gave us a terribly offended look every time we dared to let snow be on the ground. Current beagle on the other hand had a glee that was funny to watch his first year, but nowadays he just sort of endures it,

14. Toddlers laboriously dressed in hats, scarves, jackets, mittens, snow pants, wool socks, & boots have the same pee loop; the only difference is that they don’t actually pee in the snow.

15. Mochi isn’t much for snow. In fact, if it’s raining too hard she’ll cut the walk around the neighborhood short by a couple blocks. She’s a princess, but she’s our princess.

16. lol

17. Also known as your cold weather scoop loop?

18. My family’s first dog would make a similar loop in the snow. Then, after we got him all dried off, he wanted to go out into the snow to play. Different things, I guess.

19. I think that may be age-related, i.e. mature adults have more sense. My first two foster puppies (age 4-10 months) would go out in the coldest, snowiest, iciest weather, lie down in the stuff, roll around, settle in to chew on something, and make a fuss about coming back inside. (Taking a break before fostering a third, since I’ve got a bunch of landscaping to do this year.)

20. My dog (a border collie) actually liked the snow. He used to stay in our courtyard in any weather.

    It’s snowing, -40C and windy outside? No problem! A perfect time for an evening stroll.

    Of course, he shed tons of fur every spring and autumn. THAT was annoying.

21. It doesn’t snow here, two of my dogs have a “I hate to pee in the rain” loop, which basically means going against the pillars under the porch overhang. If I don’t lay down the law, it starts to smell pretty funky back there. There’s also the “I peed when you made me go out, really I did,” loop, which can culminate in an “accident” on the inside of the sliding glass door later : /

    Wily would be really bummed if we actually lived somewhere that had much in the way of weather.

22. That counts as a win. Our last farm Great Dane decided she didn’t want to step off the front porch. Eeuw. Fortunately people tended to go in through the garage.