The Daddy gets up earlier than the Mama on week days, and Sampson and Delilah usually get up with him.  Since Sampson had his partial ACL tear the Mama insists that someone go out with Sampson to insure he’s not running around and doing stupid things like jumping off the wall.  Don’t laugh, I actually caught him trying to do that.

But when the Mama is sleeping and the Daddy is getting ready for work, sometimes the Daddy cheats and doesn’t go out with them.

This means sometimes the dogs poop in the yard without benefit of someone picking it up.

After the Mama gets up, and gets the dog’s food ready, gets herself ready and feeds the dogs, she takes the dogs outside again and then it’s a race to see who can get to the dog poop first.

Delilah has the advantage because she knows the potty spots.

Since I’m out there hunting poop piles, I can usually catch her and stop her with a “NO!”

Dogs who are raw fed have harder, more compact poop than kibble fed dogs.  That’s a fact.  And I think it freezes faster and harder.  That is not in fact a fact, it’s a theory of mine.

As it is in many areas of the country, it’s been very cold lately.  If I were Jen, I might go outside and throw water in the air to see if it would freeze before it hit the ground.  But I’m not Jen and with my luck, I’d just drench myself OR the water would freeze on the ground and then I’d slip and fall on my ass.

How are you with math?  Let’s add this up.  The dogs are outside without benefit of supervision.  It is cold and they are dropping warm poop on cold snow, in freezing air.

Are you following me?

Let me simplify it.  Some mornings I am out in the cold trying to pry up hard poop that is frozen to the snow.

 

Which is how it came about that I scraped my thumb on either ice or dog shit.

Don’t get your panties in a wad, if it was in fact dog shit that cause my scrape I didn’t actually TOUCH the poop.  The best thing I can figure is when I was trying to pry the turd up, I either hit ice with my bare finger or the poop was so hard, it scraped my thumb through the poop bag.   My fingers were so freaking cold from digging in snow that I couldn’t feel anything and it wasn’t until I got inside that I saw the blood.

Naturally I washed my hands and put antibiotic cream on it.

The problem was I was outside without gloves because I can’t manage the poop bags with my gloves.  Yes, I know Jodi Chick had a DIY pair of grippy gloves but what can I say, I’m lazy.

So there I was wondering how I was going to remedy this situation when guess what came in the mail?

 

I couldn’t remember ordering anything and couldn’t imagine what was inside, so I opened it.

 

OMG it’s FrostFingers gloves from Earth Rated!!   I’m so excited about these gloves!!  You can tear a bag off and open it without having to take your gloves off.  Which means the next morning, I was safely able to pick up poop with no danger to my hands.

Have you ever had a special pair of gloves for picking up poop in the cold?  Did you make them yourself or buy them?

**I was given a free pair of gloves from a Facebook contest held by Earth Rated.  I was not compensated in any other way, nor was a post required in order to receive the gloves.  The thoughts and opinions expressed are my own and I will only share products I feel are relevant or of interest to Heart Like a Dog readers.