It is officially spring but we still have a lot of snow on the ground. I would say it will take about 2 more weeks until the snow is gone. We have had 3 days of above zero temperatures and the snow is indeed melting fast. My dog walking trails are still hard packed and I am only starting to punch through the snow here and there. The dogs who like to run beside the path are indeed punching through.
Ted was the first to do so and I thought he had really hurt himself as it was hard for him to get up. Two of his four legs went through the snow all the way to the top and two did not. I think he was stunned more than anything. He walked away with a limp and a small scrape on his toe but was back to himself by the next day.
One of my favorite things about winter is clean dogs. Yes on the colder days I have to spend a lot of time dressing and undressing the dogs who don’t have the coats for this climate. Some dogs (Tug the Bull Dog and Timber the Terrier) actually require long johns, a jacket and boots. But the amount of time I spend dressing dogs in winter is inconsequential in comparison to cleaning dirty dogs the rest of the year. And it is a clean job. No mud involved. Or smell.
When the snow is gone and the streams run freely, the swamps and ponds are there for swimming or just submerging in and the mud is just eveywhere to roll and run in that is a dirty time of year.
I literally spend hours every day hosing and wiping dogs down before they go back into their homes. Some dogs ie Golden Retreivers, White Standard Poodles and Border Collies who have lots of hair can be hosed and rubbed down with a towel and you would swear they haven’t been cleaned. I sometimes wish there was a mobile grooming service following the Dog Mobile to clean all the dogs before they head back into their homes.
So I will enjoy my last few days or weeks of clean dogs and a relatively clean dog mobile until the mud season is upon us.