snow and ice

The other night we were headed toward one of my favorite spots when I saw someone on the hill above us. Some idiot was sitting up there in the trees in the dark. I could see the light shining on his face. For some reason that spooked me and suddenly my human dad found himself running down the street behind me. And, while he thought he was doing quite well with two hip replacements, running behind a dog that has taken you off guard so that you can’t stop or set your feet is not recommended.

After about 20 meters or so, he managed to drag me to a halt and had a serious talk with me. As soon as he relaxed a little, I was dragging him toward home again. I am so strong that it is almost impossible to hold me back if I catch you off guard.

We can safely say that winter is here. Last Saturday was beautiful. Sunday afternoon, we looked out the window and all we saw was white. It was snowing and huge flakes were falling. My human dad took me out to see the snow. I didn’t quite know what to think of it. The ground was still too warm to hold the snow and I found out that it is very difficult to catch snowflakes in my mouth and, if you do, they melt instantly.

Monday was dry and cold and Tuesday it poured down rain and was close to freezing. Wednesday morning it was dry and cold again. That evening it started snowing again. The ground was still not cold enough to hold the snow. Thursday and Friday were freezing at night and not much warmer during the day. Saturday morning we woke up to 4 inches of snow and it has been snowing ever since.

Now I have discovered what neat stuff snow really is. You can bury your nose in it and just walk along like a snow plow. You can run and jump around in it and just have a wonderful time. We went to the dog park this morning and I spent my time running from one end to the other. I managed to pull my human mom's mitten off twice. That was a wonderful game, running from one end of the park to the other with two people chasing me trying to get the mitten back, while everyone sliped and slided in the snow. I tossed it in the air and jumped after it. I would drop it and wait until they were almost ready to pick it up and then grab it and take off again.

Problem is now that I know what fun the snow is I want to be outside all the time. I start whining and my folks don’t know whether I need to pee or just want to go play in the snow. That is until last evening.

We are having a genuine arctic snow storm. Freezing temperatures, heavy winds. I have no desire none what so ever to go out in that. I run to the parking lot in front of the house, take care of business and run back inside.

With the snow and ice on the ground, it is very slippery. They put sand on the sidewalks but at night it freezes over and if you walk in the snow you never know what is underneath. My human dad has already taken his first fall. He didn’t look very graceful when he did it but he managed to protect his hips. I was very concerned when he fell. It is a little difficult to get up with the hip problem. So, after I saw that he was okay and saw him trying to get up, I decided it must be a new game and dove on top of him. I didn't realize how difficult it is to stand up with 42 kg of dog standing on the back.