urbpan | Attempted dogwalk: Failure (Reply)

The Dogs were happy enough to go for a 5:30 a.m. walk, but they didn't know how cold it is. My Firefox accuweather button says "12 f." Charlie wouldn't cross the plowhump that blocks the curbcut to cross the street. He urinated right in front of the house, and once I dragged him across the street, he urinated there, then dragged me back. He let me know with the look on his face, with all certainty, that he wasn't havin' none of it. I took him back upstairs, let him off-leash and he RAN back to bed.

I took Maggie back downstairs. Yesterday we did the "short loop" through the Riverway (the park that I'm always posting pictures of on the weekends) which wasn't too bad, terrain-wise, but Charlie had hurty foot as we were returning. He was licking his feet on the couch, so I checked them out. His foot pads were raw and tender, all the rough hairy parts worn down to soft pink skin. So today I decided not to take Maggie back in that park.

I walk down the block, crossed over to "the island" (the bit of park across the street), and tried to take her that way. The terrain there is a narrow path made by foot traffic pounding down the snow for the past couple days. It's horrible to walk on, but less horrible than most of the walking surfaces out there right now. Other than the path there's the snow: two storms worth, topped with the frozen evidence of the sleet and rain that finished the last storm off. So, about 18 inches of snow, with a hard crust that you have to punch through (you'll break through it anyway, so you have to stomp through it so that you have control, or else it will give unexpectedly--the dogs are light enough to only break through one out of every four steps, which they hate). I was able to walk her about 20 feet down the path before she put on the brakes. She urinated once, then refused to walk another step. Then it was just a matter of bringing her past all the scary monsters--big dark bipeds with misshapen heads (hoods up on their parkas) staggering around weirdly (kind of like I was, because of the horrible footing) to get her home.

Neither dog was interested in eating breakfast. Now they're both tucked up in tiny balls on the bed. I only wish I could join them.