DEAR BOOMER,
ou're going into the hospital for your operation today. Hope all works out well for you, and we see you bounding through Windsor Park again in a couple of weeks.
If I were to take a few weeks off for some R&R at home, this is the time of year I would choose. A very unsettled time. One day, you can walk on top of the snow as if it was hard as rock. Tennis balls bounce on it like it were concrete.
The next day you're floundering through the drifts of rotten snow. You can lose a tennis ball easily, because the melting snow has no resistance, and the balls bury deep and wind up in the melted water that sometimes gathers below. When the snow is gone in a few weeks, we'll find a hoard of balls lost in the soggy weeks when the snow first begins to give in to the growing power of the sun.
The worst of it, of course, is the puddles of ice water. I would much rather take a walk in a crisp winter day across the dry firmness of packed snow. Now we can't avoid the occasional puddles of melted snow. How cold they are on the feet. And when Alpha wipes my paws when we come back to the house, he also must wipe my belly, because the mud from the street splashes everywhere.
The Pup has similar problems with this weather. After Alpha dries my paws and my belly, he tends to the Pup's boots, which are invariably filled with water, and he wrings out the Pup's boot liners and sox and runs another load down to the washing machine.
So all and all, you're probably well out of this weather for the next while. There's another reason I get a bit apprehensive at this time of year. Something about the longer days and the receding snow that makes car drivers a bit more crazy than usual.
They begin to race up Riverdale Avenue as if they thought they were sap racing up a tree. They do crazy things, passing one another in intersections, or when someone has slowed down to turn into a driveway.
We were almost hit by a car the other day, the Pup and I. It wasn't even on the busy street. We were dawdling and sniffing our way through the back streets on our way to the Porch of Many Smells.
I don't know if you know this place. It's where my friend Storm lives. Alpha brings the Pup here almost every day. He takes the Pup inside the house and leaves me out on the porch to investigate the smells. Occasionally Storm succeeds in making a break for it when the door opens to let other pups inside.
This has become such a regular morning routine that we can do it in our daydreams, and I guess that is exactly what we were doing this particular morning.
Alpha was walking a few feet ahead. The Pup was slashing at the snow drifts with a stick he had found on the street. And I was staying close to the Pup, sniffing the hydrants and the snowbanks, which is how we get the morning news, of course. There was a splatter of that freezing rain that makes our footing difficult on the side streets.
Then out of the back alley, a red car came around the corner, bouncing in the ice ruts as it headed for the street. The rime of frozen rain hadn't been entirely cleared from the windows. Alpha was on one side of the alley. The Pup and I on the other. I think the driver must have seen Alpha, but he didn't see us, and we were just about to cross right in front of his path.
"Stop!" Alpha shouted. And again, even louder, "STOP!"
Now, you and I know that tone of voice. It's a command that our alphas use and it brooks no contradiction. So I stopped. In fact, I sat, with my ears to attention. And the Pup stopped - somewhat bewildered, wondering why his daddy would shout at him so.
And mercifully, the driver stopped too. Maybe he thought Alpha was talking to him. Just as well. Alpha should then have said, "Bad driver! Go to bed!" so the man would slink off to his den to contemplate his misdemeanor. But instead, the driver stayed inside the car, stayed in the alleyway, and waited until the Pup and I had caught up to Alpha. The Pup was crying. "It wasn't your fault," said Alpha and he hugged him very tight.
I thought that at least he should have given the Pup a doggie biscuit for being so good at obeying commands. Should have given one to me as well, for that matter. And as for the driver, no dog treats for him. Not for a long time.
Hoping you're feeling better soon,
Zoscha