Well spring is here but yesterday was a little reminder of the cold of winter.  It felt like it was about to snow all day.  Dog walking in the winter is my absolute favorite time of year to walk for many reasons.  I love cold and have no problem bundling myself up to face the elements.   Most of the dogs also have no issues with the cold. I also love how clean the dogs stay in the winter.  There is usually no mud and water to contend with and that equals clean dogs.

I do face one issue in the winter and cold weather and that is hunger.  I burn a lot of calories on a daily basis just walking all day but you add to that the extra energy I need to stay warm and that equals a lot of calories.  So I eat a BIG breakfast.  I pack a lot of food to bring in the car and I eat in between every dog walk.  I still manage to finish the day starving and I always lose weight steadily through the winter only to gain weight steadily through the summer so I maintain year to year.

One thing that absolutely torments me in the winter is crock pots.  So many of my clients use crock pots which make a lot of sense if you are working all day.  Through all the ingredients in in the morning, work all day and come home to a hot, healthy and ready meal at the end of the day.  But for the dog walker who has been outside working in the cold all the day the smell of the crock pot cooking is an absolute tease.  I am starving and I walk in a warm house to smell roast beef with tomatoes and italian spices or curry chicken or roast pork.  I just want to eat it there and then.  I usually wander over and stare into the glass cover, take in the smell and try to figure out what is cooking, fantasize about eating it.  I then head back to my car to eat a cold egg sandwich or something like that while I drive away to drop off dogs.

I have noticed a bit of a reduction in crock pot use and I think it has to do with the amount of power outages we have in this area.  Imagine arriving home after a long day’s work expecting a hot meal to be ready only to find a half cooked curry chicken because the power went out at noon.  You have to throw it in the garbage and start from scratch.  Not fun.

You may ask if I lust after these warm meals all day in the winter why I am not packing warm thermoses of food such as I would find in a crock pot.  It turns out I just don’t have time to stop and eat something with a spoon.  I need to eat food that I can eat while driving such as sandwiches, cookies, bars, hard boiled eggs and fruit.

Today I was riding my bike when I saw a beautiful three legged black standard poodle walking with some people.  Of course I just had to stop and talk to them.  My first question was do you know Laurie B and the bush poodles.  Of course they did.  My next question was how did your dog end up with three legs.  Sad story.  The dogs current owner was working at a Vet’s office when this standard poodle was brought in with a broken leg.  The owners boyfriend had kicked the puppy and broken her leg.  She had surgery and a plate installed.  A few months later the puppy was brought back to the vets with a break to the same leg above the plate.  Same boyfriend did the damage.  The surgery was going to be too expensive for the owner so she left the little standard poodle at the vet’s for euthanasia.  Luckily this employee had fallen in love and paid for the surgery and of course adopted her.  She is named Solstice and I think she is now 7 years old.  I asked about her mobility and apparently the owner has to look the other way sometimes as Solstice is so nimble she scales steep hills etc. Solstice is also a teeny tiny dog.  I would say she is a teacup Standard Poodle and only weighs 35 pounds.  She may have been malnourished as a puppy which would cause her growth to be stunted.  I guess having one leg missing could also contribute to weighing less than a “standard” standard poodle.