The First Snow

We were reminiscing about our dogs this morning. We both miss them so much. I was thinking about my Maggie, when I heard the weather report. Snow coming. She loved the snow. She liked to eat it, walk in it, roll in it, and gather it on her furry feet. She would have little snowballs on her fuzzy legs and hanging from her tummy, when she came in. She would shake and the snowballs would fly all over the kitchen. I took some pictures of her a long time ago, on our deck, at dusk.It was the first snow of the year and she wasn't quite sure about it. One taste and she remembered the fun she had had just a year before. She just pranced around the deck and started gathering snow. She kept watching me, while she walked around the deck...making her puppy tracks in the fresh snow.She had a permanent track around our yard. She used to walk the perimeter of the yard every time she was outside. It was like she was guarding her property and sniffing to see who had intruded. She gave chase to a squirrel or bird occasionally. She would act very blase about it...just sniffing the ground and then abruptly...chase them with reckless abandon.....sometimes with the critter...crashing into the fence.

It's getting dark now and she looks a little apprehensive...maybe wondering if she should venture out into the yard. Sometimes we would have owls in our trees and she would look at me so funny, when she would hear the hoot.

We walked every morning...rain or shine. She would bound out the door and leap into a fresh snow drift. The neighbors got used to seeing the pup and me dashing to the park...to see deer tracks in the snow.Nose to the ground and those velvet ears flying. She would have been a good hunter, I'm sure....but that's not why we bought her.She was to heal our wounds after losing our little dog, Squirt. I remember the first day we saw her...a basket of puppies just tumbling out and the little fat, pudgy one waddling toward me. My husband said, "Which one do you want?" What do you think was my answer?

Balisha