(Photo Illustration - MetroCreativeConnection - Editor's Notes by Christina Myer)

If you are a dog owner, the last few weeks have perhaps been a little more difficult in terms of trying to take them for walks … or even get them to go outside when necessary.

My pit bull/husky mix got none of the husky’s tolerance for the cold, and all of the pit bull’s daintiness when it comes to wet, icy or muddy paws.

I had that dog in layers like a child — T-shirt, hoodie and winter coat — and only when he felt properly buttoned up would he walk outside on some of the more frigid days.

If you’re thinking I spoil the dog, you are correct. But it is important to think about how to care for our pets when weather like that strikes (and stays … and stays … and stays …)

State Senate Bill 867 might help us remember to do that.

Introduced by Sen. Laura Wakim Chapman, R-Ohio, the measure would strengthen the “definition of shelter for animals exposed to extreme weather; clarifying the minimum requirements for what constitutes a shelter; and clarifying what does not amount to a shelter.”

It is a crime to: mistreat an animal in a cruel manner; abandon an animal; withhold proper sustenance, shelter that protects from the weather or necessary medical treatment; abandon an animal to die, leave unattended or confined in a motor vehicle when physical injury to or death of the animal is likely to result; ride an animal when it is physically unfit; bait or harass an animal for the purposes of making it perform; cruelly chain or tether an animal; use, train or possess a domesticated animal for the purpose of seizing, detaining or maltreating any other domesticated animal.

The part being strengthened is what it means to give an animal shelter that protects. The extended definition probably reads like common sense to some people. To a person who puts three layers on her dog to let him outside when the temperatures are in single digits, it still doesn’t sit quite right.

But we are a state in which plenty of animals live most of their lives outside. I know that.

“This is the only way to get that process started so that people can actually make a difference and give these dogs protection. It’ll ban barrels for housing, vehicles, cardboard boxes; it gets really specific that you have to have a well-insulated box two inches off the ground,” animal advocate Carri Welsch told WTRF.

The bill now sits in the state Senate Judiciary Committee. It’s one of the very few measures that has caught my eye outside the realm of job creation, economic development and improving quality of life for humans.

I suppose that is because, to me, having happy and healthy animals around DOES improve our own quality of life. Surely in a state where Babydog could have at one point won an election on her own, enough other lawmakers understand to make sure SB 867 gets to the governor’s desk.

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While we’re talking about common sense and decency, it is unfathomable to me that ANYONE would think it was appropriate to send out the now-infamous social media post purportedly from the White House that included placement of former President and first lady Barack and Michelle Obama’s faces on apes.

Administrators of the account have since deleted the post. (I am phrasing it that way because the blatantly racist post has been blamed on “staffers.”) Meanwhile, defense of the post has included the claim that it was simply a play on the movie “The Lion King,” featuring the president as the lion.

There are, of course, no ape characters in “The Lion King.” For those wondering about Rafiki, he is a mandrill.

Even if there were apes in the movie, not a single person in this country misunderstands the reason for putting the Obamas on those characters — and most of us were horrified. It’s time for some soul-searching if you were not.

Christina Myer is executive editor of The Parkersburg News and Sentinel. She can be reached via e-mail at cmyer@newsandsentinel.com