Mal on the loose

Exhausted dog in her bed

I got to go skating two days in a row and it was great. I was going to go skating on Friday but out of the blue a big snowstorm arrived. Caught everyone by surprise, even the weatherman. It was a nice storm, hardly any wind and big light fluffy snowflakes, but a serious dump of snow that closed schools early and took most cars off the road. A few people who went out early got to skate on the pond in an inch of fluffy snow. That was my dogwalk time so I didn't bring skates and within an hour there was too much snow on the ice anyway.

Later in the afternoon I wanted to go downtown to check my mail. In this town there's no mail delivery, you pick up your mail at the post office. But you can only go during regular office hours so Friday afternoon is the last chance of the week. I'm waiting for a seed catalog and was hoping it was here, but it wasn't. I planned to walk down without Hapi because I wasn't sure she had the stamina for a round trip down and up the hill. However she hauled herself out of bed as I was getting ready to leave, so I took her.

Boy was she excited! A walk in the snowstorm, her favourite thing! She pranced all the way down the hill. With the snow and the snow plough it was a bit greasy under foot and she was pulling on the leash but I managed to stay upright. On the way back up the hill she went into high gear. Refused to walk on the sidewalk, had to walk in the middle of the road. Several times I had to yank her to the kerb to get out of the way of the few cars that were sliding around on the steep hill. As soon as we reached a quieter street I gave up trying to slow her down, and let her off leash. It was getting scary, I nearly slipped and fell a couple of times trying to keep pace.

She took off like a bat out of hell, straight up the hill all the way home. Well not quite, she stopped at one house to check out their backyard. But it was amazing to see, she hasn't run like that in over a year. When I got home she was running around the yard in the deep snow, still excited and just burning off energy.

Of course she slept the rest of the day, she had used up all her spoons and then some. Crazy dog.