Togo Goes Winter Walking

Winter walking. I know it sounds spectacular, but it’s pretty much like summer walking, spring walking, and fall walking, except colder, most of the time.

Daddy likes to walk me any time during the year. But he complains most about winter walking. Daddy is what you call cold-natured. You would think that means that Daddy likes to be cold. Nothing could be further from the truth.

The good news is just because Daddy doesn’t act like he wants to do something, that doesn’t mean he won’t do the thing and secretly like it. That’s what Momma tells me, anyway, and I tend to believe her more than Daddy. After all, according to Momma, Daddy is apparently keeping a lot of secrets.

I love the cold. I’m what some people call a snow dog. The problem is, we don’t have a lot of snow in West Texas. Any time it’s below 40 degrees, Daddy acts like we’re about to be in the midst of a Snowmageddon like we had several years ago. In his mind, things look like this.

In reality, things look more like this.

I let Daddy go on and on about how cold it is. Because he’s going to walk me anyway. He complains about snow, but he likes to take pictures of our tracks so people will think he is very hardy and adventuresome.

One of my favorite things about winter walking is seeing my breath. I like to call them “dragon snorts.” Daddy would probably like to dragon snort, too, if he didn’t wear glasses.

As much as I like being out when it’s cold, I don’t complain much when ice is on the ground. I think it’s fun to slippy-slide around. And it’s really funny when Daddy slippy-slides around.

But Daddy lacks my natural grace and agility. Momma told me it was important for me to keep Daddy from slippy-sliding because he has no muscle memory for grace and agility since that would imply that he had it to begin with.

I cut our walk short this last week when I saw the thin sheet of ice covering the road. Out of an abundance of caution, I steered Daddy back home immediately. While Daddy protested a bit, I know that he appreciated my wisdom. I could see it in his eyes. And in the fifteen additional doggy treats I mooched off of him when he took off my harness.

Yes, winter walking is one of my favorite things. Second only to winter snacking.