Finding Clothes and Accessories for Dogs

Is your dog cold - and you don't even know it?

It all came to me a few days ago. I was out at my local dog park, watching my pooches play with the other dogs there. My two dogs, Daunte and Pepper are both medium-sized mutts who are a bit temperamental, so play time at the park is always a little tense. On most days I keep a close eye on them, in case they should get into a fight with any of the bigger dogs.

On this particular day, however, I ran into another problem. Neither of my dogs seemed to want to play at all. They just sort of skulked around while the other dogs frolicked around them. This wasn't normal. But, it wasn't until I took a closer look that I noticed that both my dogs were shivering.

What the heck?!

It was kind of cold out - about 35 degrees, but I hadn't noticed any issue with the temperature before. And that's when I realized that most of the other dogs were wearing sweaters. In fact, right about the same moment I noticed this, the lady sitting next to me said, "Your dogs look cold. Don't they have sweaters?"

Hmm. I had never bought clothes for any of my dogs before. Frankly, I always thought it looked kind of dumb. I had bought my dogs the usual basic accessories; simple collars, leashes, food dishes, water bowls, and a few toys to play with. But when I saw both of then shaking that day apparently from the cold, I figured maybe it was time to start looking for something to keep them warm!

So, I loaded them both back into my car, and headed over to a nearby pet store.

The store was a big nationwide chain that had a wide selection of doggie clothes and accessories - in fact, they had just about everything you could think of a dog could ever need. I have to admit they had some nice looking sweaters! I pulled out a handsome but simple tan one. It was woolly and thick, and it looked pretty warm. But when I tried to put it on Daunte, I was in for a bit of a surprise. That bad boy wanted nothing to do with it.

At that point I realized that dogs are every bit as picky as we humans are. When I was driving over to begin shopping for accessories for dogs, I had never even considered the possibility that they may not like the idea. But there we were, caught in a doggie 'what not to wear' struggle! I tried again and again, but Daunte kept twisting and squirming and continually managed to get away from me as I tried to put the dog sweater on him.

Maybe he didn't like the color. Or maybe the item I chose had some strange odor to it that I couldn't smell.

I tried another sweater that seemed a little bigger, and I let him smell it first. This seemed to do the trick. I think that the first sweater might have been a little bit too stiff. And although the second sweater didn't seem to be as warm as the first, it would still be quite a bit warmer than not having one at all. Once Pepper saw Daunte in his new sweater, I had no trouble with him at all.

As we drove home that day, I came to the realization that these sweaters were going to take a lot of wear and tear. So we stopped by a pet shop near our home that specializes in accessories for dogs. They had a big sale going on that day, so I was able to get a few more similar items since I now knew what both my dogs liked. I even picked up a couple of jogging leashes while I was there. Now my boys are looking good, and seem to be feeling fine in the cold weather -- even with the other dogs picking fights with them!