Winter

Winter approaches and with it comes snow. It snowed just a little bit last night --- enough to stick but not enough to cover the green stuff completely.

Sandy loves the snow. She couldn't wait for my alarm; she had to get me up at 6:30 this morning (Saturday) to let me know about the snow outside. If you were to ask her about it, I'm sure she'd tell you it took me way too long to get ready to go out.

We headed to the Enterprise off-leash area where there was a little more snow accumulated than in our back yard, and where the pond had a mist hovering about a metre above it. Can dogs see that? Sandy just plunged into the pond, stood there looking stunned for a minute, and then tried to act casual as she headed back for the shore. "I KNEW it was going to be that cold," she said. "No worries."

We played with a stick. We don't really play "Fetch." We play another game, which as far as I can tell is called "It's MY stick now!" Sandy doesn't mind chasing a stick, but bringing it back to me must seem like a pretty bad idea. "You're just going to THROW it again! Where's THAT at?" So I throw the stick, Sandy chases after it, picks it up, shakes it to make sure it is, in fact, dead, and then takes it far away and guards the hell out of it. It's a pretty good game. Sometimes we play it with a Frisbee.

Today she grabbed the stick, ran with it, dropped it in the snow and then rolled on it. She stood up and watched me. I could see her breath. She was beautiful and happy. She tossed the stick up in the air and caught it. She galloped around with it. In the end, she brought it back to me and when I threw it again, she sighed and went after it. It was a great morning.