the woes of a dog mom in the winter

Jan 4, 2024

With winter in full swing in southern Indiana, my puppies are about to make me crazy scratching. Your skin feels drier in winter — and so does the skin of dogs. The difference is, my leg doesn’t bang against the wall as I scratch when others are trying to sleep. 🙄

Of course, it’s hard to get comfortable and sleep when you’re busy scratching, but part of it is also habit, I think. The puppies want me up so they can sleep on the couch and basically only go where I go. Yup, they are big ass babies.

It’s not all my fault, but I could do better.

Winter air is dry and indoor heat further reduces humidity. That’s not my fault. It is my fault that I don’t groom them often when it’s cold outside to remove the dead skin cells and distribute their natural oils. Labs are shedding machines and inside grooming sucks when you don’t have a specific area designated for it.

Merida and Dharma follow me everywhere.

So today is grooming day — brushing loose hair that will create a furnado, and then coating them both with virgin coconut oil. That also means covering furniture they might lie on with their oily bodies AND time afterward to clean up the mess of hair to minimize it floating around for days.

And then we’ll nap.

With a bit less than 4 hours sleep last night, I’ll be ready for a nap. Because they’re the reason I had little sleep, they’ll nap too. Oh, the woes of being a dog mom…