Paws in Snow

An expedition

This is Some Dogs, a blog about dogs. Click this link to subscribe.

Hi there. Thanks for stopping by. If you are new here then let me introduce you to Peggy and Steve. You’ve now met the two most important dogs I know. Today is a short update on a paw patrol snow patrol. Let’s all take a deep breath and direct our focus on dogs for a moment. 

Peggy and Steve are well acquainted with winter. In Montana, the first signs can appear as early as the beginning of October, and often you can count on a freak snow shower in early May. This is good news for Peggy and Steve, who approach snow as an added layer of excitement atop their usual outdoor adventures. Snow doesn’t appear to suppress the usual sights and smells at snoot level — it requires them to be excavated with furious digging and exuberant face-first dunking. For them, snow is like wrapping paper, covering up the mysterious gifts of the earth below.

But this year is not a normal year and we are not in Montana and Steve and Peggy have not seen snow in a long time. That is, until this weekend, when a freak weather event brought six glorious inches of freshly fallen snow to the Pacific Northwest. Like the best gifts, it was delivered quietly and unexpectedly overnight.

Peggy and Steve woke to this new world — unrecognizable and inviting. Like thoroughbreds at the starting gate, they stood poised at the front door and bolted upon opening. Unlike a champion steed, they were direction-less and harried and resembled a Supermarket Sweep contestant frantically trying to fit as many items in their cart before the buzzer. After a pee, they were, quite tragically, summoned briefly inside.

But soon, leashes gathered, the pair set out on an expedition. The walk would’ve been familiar had everything not been wildly, magically coated with a half foot thick icy frost. A gentle snow trickled down through the windless air layering on Peggy’s brown fur, like powdered sugar on a freshly baked Christmas cookie. Steve attempted to engage his tactical arctic camouflage but was betrayed by the black halo around his right eye and his dark, noncompliant spots.

The backroads were unplowed and deserted in the early morning stillness and our heroes set off, unleashed to make fresh tracks. The usual acoustic hum of the air was dampened. The only noise was the crunch of paws: Four at a time, then three, then four.

Soon, the expedition reached the clearing. The straw colored grasses, currently hibernating, poked out of the pristine white carpet. The snow cut an untouched path through the straw to a pine forrest, sagging gently under the snow covering. Peggy surveyed the land before her. She paused briefly, her stoic countenance giving way to a devilish grin. She thundered forward, plowing almost shoulder-deep into the powder.

Steve gave chase, first quickly catching up, then passing with a taunting nip at Peggy’s scruff. Redoubling her efforts, Peggy barreled through the landscape, kicking up white tufts into the distance. Her playful barks echoed in the open space.

Then, for a moment, total stillness. A hawk made circles overhead. The overcast sky lightened briefly.

At last, a black blur flashed out of the pines, careening on the slick surface. A russet blobual roughly the shape and hue of a chicken nugget followed behind, its pink tongue set against the terrain. Steve bounded around the corner, down the home stretch toward their spectator (me), not so much through the snow as over it. He slowed his run to a prance. Heaving, he looked up at the spectator, a grave miscalculation given the speed of the incoming chicken nugget. With the force of a locomotive beginning to run out of coal, Peggy executed a perfect form tackle. Paws out, wrap around.

Our heroes tumbled through the snow in a knot of fur. Dazed, they came to a stop and — still intertwined — looked around confused, perhaps embarrassed. They exchanged looks, then looked at their spectator. For another moment, there was total stillness.