It's been getting more and more cool, as Fall settles in. With Mandy already showing a dislike for the chilly outdoors, we've had a scenario in our heads, of how this little desert dog would react to her first snow with us. We expected something on the order of, "Are you KIDDING?!", when we first tried to take her out in the stuff. Sure enough, we had our first decent amount of snow this morning, about 4 inches, with the temperature right around 34 degrees. It was a nice birthday present for K! Mandy saw me dressing for a walk, and got all excited about going. She was twirling in circles, doing excited little push ups with her forepaws, and generally trying to get me moving out the door as quickly as possible. I put on my boots, coat, and hat, filled my pockets with dog-walk paraphernalia, got her nice new waterproof coat on, and clipped on the leash. I could barely hold her back, as she dragged me to the front door. I swung the door open, and a blast of cold air hit her. She stopped in her tracks, leaned forward and examined the layer of white on the steps and across the yard, watched the flakes drifting down, and sniffed a little. She spun around, and ran upstairs as far as the leash would let her, and looked down at me, with a look that said, "Are you KIDDING?!" K activated the fallback plan, and took her down through the basement, to a covered spot in the back yard under the deck stairs. We figured this was a great opportunity to try letting her off leash, but that backfired, and she used her freedom to sneak up the snowy deck stairs to the (usually nice warm sunny) deck. That didn't work, so she scooted past us, and back indoors without doing anything. K led her with the leash to the desired spot, and she finally was successful, if somewhat miffed.
I tried getting her out for a walk again later in the day, after it had stopped snowing and the sun was out. She wasn't all that interested, but I persisted, and soon we were on our way down the wet street. She didn't find much of interest at first, with all the grass covered in snow. Something changed when we got to the bottom of the street, and her favorite trail was also covered in snow, except for the flagstones, which had been warm enough to melt the falling snow. She pressed on, hopping from stone to stone, in a cheery and springy kind of way. Halfway down the path, she started exploring out into the belly-deep (for her) snow, looking for a place to go. Not finding her ideal spot, she returned to the path, and we ventured on, down into Lee Gulch. She boldly struck out into the layer of snow on the boardwalk, and onto the bridge across the creek, which was already burbling loudly with runoff, and headed up onto the main trail, where there were only patches of snow. This she loved. I expected her to stick to the dry spots, but it seemed that now that she knew she had dry spots to come back to, she got her usual sense of adventure back. She explored out into the deeper snow on a regular basis, sniffing around and pushing snow around with her nose, and dragged me onward with great enthusiasm, for a fairly long walk. It looks like we have a snow dog!
Of course I couldn't resist taking pictures.
It's been getting more and more cool, as Fall settles in. With Mandy already showing a dislike for the chilly outdoors, we've had a scenario in our heads, of how this little desert dog would react to her first snow with us. We expected something on the order of, "Are you KIDDING?!", when we first tried to take her out in the stuff. Sure enough, we had our first decent amount of snow this morning, about 4 inches, with the temperature right around 34 degrees. It was a nice birthday present for K! Mandy saw me dressing for a walk, and got all excited about going. She was twirling in circles, doing excited little push ups with her forepaws, and generally trying to get me moving out the door as quickly as possible. I put on my boots, coat, and hat, filled my pockets with dog-walk paraphernalia, got her nice new waterproof coat on, and clipped on the leash. I could barely hold her back, as she dragged me to the front door. I swung the door open, and a blast of cold air hit her. She stopped in her tracks, leaned forward and examined the layer of white on the steps and across the yard, watched the flakes drifting down, and sniffed a little. She spun around, and ran upstairs as far as the leash would let her, and looked down at me, with a look that said, "Are you KIDDING?!" K activated the fallback plan, and took her down through the basement, to a covered spot in the back yard under the deck stairs. We figured this was a great opportunity to try letting her off leash, but that backfired, and she used her freedom to sneak up the snowy deck stairs to the (usually nice warm sunny) deck. That didn't work, so she scooted past us, and back indoors without doing anything. K led her with the leash to the desired spot, and she finally was successful, if somewhat miffed.
I tried getting her out for a walk again later in the day, after it had stopped snowing and the sun was out. She wasn't all that interested, but I persisted, and soon we were on our way down the wet street. She didn't find much of interest at first, with all the grass covered in snow. Something changed when we got to the bottom of the street, and her favorite trail was also covered in snow, except for the flagstones, which had been warm enough to melt the falling snow. She pressed on, hopping from stone to stone, in a cheery and springy kind of way. Halfway down the path, she started exploring out into the belly-deep (for her) snow, looking for a place to go. Not finding her ideal spot, she returned to the path, and we ventured on, down into Lee Gulch. She boldly struck out into the layer of snow on the boardwalk, and onto the bridge across the creek, which was already burbling loudly with runoff, and headed up onto the main trail, where there were only patches of snow. This she loved. I expected her to stick to the dry spots, but it seemed that now that she knew she had dry spots to come back to, she got her usual sense of adventure back. She explored out into the deeper snow on a regular basis, sniffing around and pushing snow around with her nose, and dragged me onward with great enthusiasm, for a fairly long walk. It looks like we have a snow dog! Of course I couldn't resist taking pictures.
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