Walking in the snow

This morning Aleene and I ventured out with dog on leash and trudged toward the golf course to get some exercise. We have had over a foot of snow in the past week and the wind has created drifts and bare spots around here. As we got about 100 yards on our journey (after Rose does her pottie thing) it beccame obvious that this was going to be a tough mile.

Rose hops when she gets in deep snow. Her legs are too short to walk though it sometimes and she will go a long ways hopping. She always looks for the best trail so she won't have to hop...because at 11 1/2 she gets tired easily. Well, while I fare much better with these stilts I have for legs, imagine Aleene's dilemma. She is knee deep most of the time and therefore follows my trail, but my stride is too long for a comfortable gait for her, so she hops too. Talk about a work out...whew!

Rose climbs the drifts and piled up snow mounds, on command...she thinks she is herding a flock of fleeces when she is in snow. She rolls frequently...tries to make angels, I think...and generally has a rip snorting good time.

When we got to the eighth hole there is a dip in the trail as the water goes through a tube in the ground and that bridges two bodies of water. That was just about drifted over top to bottom. Rose made it, but I think she was walking on top of the drift most of the way. I was concerned that Aleene might get lost in the drift too, but that did not prove to be the case. When I went through I noticed some blue plastic in the grass that was obviously from the construction that is going on in the complex near by....so I picked it up. This stuff is like our bags that the newspaper comes in every day. Now, Rose gets the paper for us frequently...and loves the bags because it bundles the paper up for her and she can manage if much easier than if it is not in plastic. So, she did not hesitate a second when I dispatched her to get another piece of the stuff not too far away...."get the paper," I said. That is the command that gets her going.

She is off to the races only to find that the drift between us and the piece of plastic is verra, verra deep (that is very spoken in a combination Michigan and Southern dialect which is heard a lot around here.) In fact there were four sheets of plastic within about 10 feet of each other. So she hops and stops. Hops and stops....each time me coaxing her to "get the paper." She battled that big piece of blue plastic for all she was worth. She would step on it and it would come out of her mouth and then go back and yank it up again and drag it another two feet. Then stop for air. She worked hard, but got it up to us, probably a distance of twenty five feet in vera deep snow.

Talk about proud...she was just a ball of excitement and we gave her lots of reinforcement...then I dispatched her to go after another piece. She looked at me after about two steps as if to say..."if you want that stuff, you get it, buddy." We laughed and called her back. She was one tired, but happy dog when we got home. She will sleep soundly today.