The weather does a bang-up job of regulating our outdoor recreational activity day-to-day throughout the winter months. It isn't just how we react to extreme conditions being comfortable enough to want to spend an hour or so rambling about in a woodland setting, but how our two little dogs can manage.
It is, of course, up to us to determine how they will react to weather conditions.

Because they're so small extreme cold affects them more than it would larger dogs. So we dress them accordingly. It's their feet that concern us as well in weather such as we're accustomed to bearing up in during the winter months. This morning the thermometer read -22C, with a biting wind. So that's pretty cold.

By afternoon the cold had relented somewhat; the temperature had risen to -12C, with wind. Still too cold for Jackie and Jillie. We're fed up with those expensive and fairly useless Mukluks that we acquired for them, thinking they would solve the problem of extreme cold protection for small dogs' feet. The little booties I used to make years ago worked far better.

So, too cold for them to get out, yet they need their exercise. They flop about the house in rest-mode quite enough, as it is. We can detect signs of lassitude and boredom, we believe, when they're deprived of outdoor time for physical activity. Romping in the backyard briefly doesn't cut it. Not does their sudden spurts of energy racing after one another in the house; too brief, too limited.

So we decided we'd give alternate type of foot-covering for them a try. We brought home a package of semi-disposable rubber boots that stretch, like tiny balloons, over their paws only. Not much of a protective covering, we thought, in extreme cold and icy conditions, but we'd give them a try. And so, on they went, and off we went into the ravine.

Jackie and Jillie spurted happily down the trails with us following in their wake. They were delighted to be out and we were happy to be there in the forest with them, despite the cold and the wind. And it was snowing as well. The wind whipped the snow toward our faces, but once we were into the ravine the cover from the wind stopped all that.

Jackie and Jillie, the tiny rubber boots just visible on their little paws

We are more than pleased with the results. Although we took a shorter-than-normal circuit, cutting our usual hour down to a half-hour today, we'll more than make it up tomorrow when the forecast is for milder weather and we can resume our usual trek. In the meantime, we all got out satisfactorily for a brisk and exhilarating walk and those tiny boots stayed on, unlike the costly and useless winter boots that drive us crazy, dropping off continually.