Chapter 45 (Animals I’ve Known and Loved, cont.)
Snowballing Problem:

I don’t remember when I began cross country skiing, but I know that it was after we got Wendy, and I got her in 1970 when my youngest son was 2 years old. It was sometime in the 70s, and she would diligently follow me in the snow. Sometimes the snow would be so deep, the only place she could comfortably walk was on the path I’d packed down with my skis. Now, 30+ years later I still ski on paths in the woods in Pennsylvania instead of Vestal New York in the deep snow and my dogs usually pad along behind on the packed trail.

Throughout the years I’ve noticed the different ways snow affects my skiing AND, how it affects the dog’s that I’ve had which have long hair, like the hair on spaniels. When it’s dry and very cold, the snow doesn’t bother anything but their paws, and to make matters worse, they’ll chew between their toes. But when the snow is the snowball stage… You know, so you could pack it into a snowball? It sticks to the bottom of my skis, but also to their long hair along their abdomens and the feathering along their legs.

Once with Wendy, poor dog, it got so bad that I realized too late that Wendy was so bogged down she no longer could move. I had to leave her stranded below while I went up the hill to the house to get a plastic slider; I lifted her into it, and pushed her up the hill from the snowy field behind the house back in Vestal. She wouldn’t go sliding with either me or the kids, but being pushed up the hill, and having no choice she agreed to it. I don’t know how Bear would put up with such a thing. He’s a 4 ½ year old English cocker, but still has that spaniel hair that seems to beckon snowballs to gather.

We got about 9 inches of new-fallen snow last week, and for awhile it lovely for cross country skiing, but one day, though it was just OK for skiing, poor Bear got his testicles back via "snow balls" as well as getting so many snowballs that were gathering on his long spaniel hair giving more and more heft as we went along the path until he was walking bowlegged… you know the stance… like a baby with a full diaper. I turned back half way from the lake, as he was becoming so bogged down, and remembered Wendy‘s plight years ago. Bear would have had a fit if I left him bogged down in the woods, and I could just imagine all the snapping and growling if I had to push HIM in a plastic slider.

Wendy would let me trim her, comb her, do whatever to her to keep the snow from sticking to her on those sticky-snow days, even spraying her paws with Pam. But with bear, it’s a completely different story. He gets all growl-y and threatening. When this happened last week I filled his water dish as a ruse, and had a large pot which I filled with warm water to dissolve as many snowballs as I could on his legs.  I grabbed the old towels we have handy all year long for mud and wetness from the dogs or our boots, and with the help of Milk Bones, though with much growling, got his feet dipped into the warm water in the pot and tried my best to break up the larger snowballs that would have taken awhile to melt.  He both knew what I was doing and was grateful, while at the same time growling in a complaining way to let me know he was blaming me for the whole fiasco. At least Wendy would patiently let me get the snow balls off her any way I could.

(I marked on the 2008 October calendar, "Get Bear TRIMMED mid-November!" )

Such is life at our small rural home.