Dog Dreams

The dog curled on his pad tonight looks warm and content, but he's not a puppy any more. At nine years old, he's showing his age. Nine may not be all that old, but Barley has had some hard knocks, and some mornings he'd rather stay on his pad than go for our morning walk.

One thing can be counted on to transform this dog in an instant, and that's snow. We've had snow on the ground all week, and Barley can't wait to get outside. Out the door, he takes a nose dive into the white powder, rolls on to his back and rocks back and forth, feet flailing in the air in joyous abandon. He gets up, shaking himself and admiring the canine snow angel he left behind. Then he's off, racing over the ground in broad circles, his boots sending up showers of snow.

The whole process doesn't last long, but for a few minutes, flying through the snow, he's a puppy, the date on his birth certificate temporarily forgotten.

Just now, on his pad, Barley's legs move jerkily to the rhythm of his dream, and the snow flies again in his heart.





A note about his boots: on snow days, Barley used to have to stop frequently to bite away the ice that formed between the pads of his feet. The boots have solved that problem. It took him a time or two to get adjusted to them, but now he loves to see them come out of the closet.  We got them here.

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and Saturday's Critters.