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Winter Clothes for Small Dogs: Boo’s Closet, Cold Weather Edition

Boo is the reason this page exists, and not because of the outfits. His famous short haircut was a medical decision, not a style one, and a Pomeranian clipped down to a teddy bear has lost the double coat that was supposed to keep him warm. So Boo wore clothes in winter because he needed them: tiny hoodies, a coat on cold days, and waterproof boots when it rained. The cute was a side effect.

That is the honest frame for small-dog winter clothes. Some small dogs need them, some do not, and the way to tell is the dog, not the calendar. The clothes page covers whether your dog likes wearing anything at all; this page is about the dogs that need to, and what actually works.

Does a small dog need a winter coat?

Often, yes. Short-coated, clipped, and very small dogs lose heat fast and usually need a coat or sweater on days you need a jacket yourself; thick-coated spitz types usually do not, and can overheat in one indoors.

The three kinds that need one: the short-coated (Chihuahuas, Italian Greyhounds, most of the toy breeds without an undercoat), the clipped (a Pomeranian in a Boo cut, a doodle in a short summer trim, anything freshly groomed), and the very small, because a five-pound body loses heat faster than a fifty-pound one. A full-coated Pomeranian, a Keeshond, or a Samoyed is built for the cold and is the exception.

The test is behavioral and it is the same one the clothes page uses: shivering, lifting paws off the ground, hunching, or refusing to keep walking means the dog is cold. Panting, pulling at a garment, or flopping down on a cool floor means it is too warm. Small dogs shiver for the same reason they need the coat, less body holding the heat, though a shiver can also be excitement or nerves, which is why the other signals matter. When you need a jacket to be comfortable outside, a small clipped dog needs one too; when you are fine in a sweater, a sweater is usually enough for the dog.

The layers, in the order to buy them

One thing to be clear about first: none of the products below are things Boo owned. Most of them did not exist when he did. They are what we would buy today for a dog with his coat, chosen by garment type and by what thousands of reviews say about fit, in the spirit of his closet rather than from it.

1. The fleece base layer. Buy this first. A fleece turtleneck is light, dries fast after a wet walk, does not mat the coat under it, and is the piece a small dog ends up wearing most days from November to March. The Fitwarm three-pack is the most-reviewed small-dog winter layer on Amazon by a wide margin, which for clothing mostly means the sizing chart is reliable. Fitwarm’s fleece turtleneck three-pack.

2. The hooded winter coat. For the actually cold days. A padded coat with a hood, a leash hole at the back, and a belly panel does the job the fleece cannot; the Vecomfy one has close to eight thousand reviews and comes in sizes small enough for a Pomeranian. The hood is for photos; most dogs wear it down. Vecomfy’s hooded winter dog coat.

3. The windproof fleece jacket. The in-between piece: warmer than the turtleneck, less bulk than the coat, and the one for a windy day above freezing. If your winters are mild, this plus the base layer is the whole wardrobe. The windproof fleece dog jacket.

4. The raincoat. Boo’s rainy-day rule was boots, but a hooded raincoat with a leash hole is the piece that keeps a clipped coat from getting soaked through, and a wet clipped dog is a cold dog for the next hour. Look for reflective strips if your evening walks are dark. SPOT’s Rainy Days hooded slicker.

5. The snood. A fleece tube that covers the neck and ears. It sounds silly until you have a dog with clipped ears on a windy day; the ears are the first thing to get cold and the last thing a coat covers. A fleece dog snood, small.

Boots: the honest version

Boo wore Pawz, and so does half the internet, and they have a three-and-a-half star rating from twenty-eight thousand people. Both things are true, and here is why.

6. Pawz rubber boots. These are balloon boots: thin natural rubber, no straps, no sole, sold by the dozen because they tear. Dogs tolerate them better than almost any other boot precisely because they can feel the ground through them, which is why Boo wore them without the high-stepping drama. The one-star reviews are all the same review: they ripped. They are disposable, and the price reflects it. For a small dog that fights strapped boots, they are still the best answer. Pawz rubber dog boots, 12-pack.

7. Strapped winter boots. The alternative: a rubber sole, a fleece lining, and two straps. Warmer, far more durable, and much harder to get a dog used to, because the stiff sole changes how the foot feels. Thirty-six thousand reviews and a four-star average say most people get there. Measure the paw with the dog standing, and introduce them one paw at a time indoors with treats, over several days. QUMY dog boots for small dogs.

8. Paw wax, for the dog that refuses both. Rubbed into the pads before a walk, it blocks salt and ice from the skin and washes off after. It is not a boot, but on a salted city sidewalk it is most of the point of one, and no dog has ever refused to wear it. Musher’s Secret paw wax.

Whatever the footwear, rinse the paws after a salted walk. Road salt is the winter hazard that matters most for a small dog, and the one most people forget.

How to measure a small dog for clothes

Three numbers, taken with the dog standing: neck circumference where the collar sits, chest girth at the widest point just behind the front legs, and back length from the base of the neck to the base of the tail. Write them down and match them against each brand’s own chart, because small-dog sizing is chaos across brands and an “S” can be two inches different from one coat to the next. When a measurement lands between sizes, go up for coats (room for the fleece underneath) and stay true for the fleece itself. For boots, measure the width of the front paw on paper with the dog’s weight on it; front paws are usually larger than back.

Getting a dog used to winter gear

Same method as every other outfit on this site; the clothes page has the day-by-day version. Boots get the slowest introduction of all, one paw at a time, indoors, for a week before the first real walk. A dog in a short clip is not being precious about the cold; the haircut page explains why the coat under the costume was never optional for Boo.

His year-round wardrobe is in Boo’s Closet, the holiday versions of all this are on the Thanksgiving and Christmas pages, and the dog himself is on the bio page.

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