Never trust us to answer a question about our favorites because the truth is – and this is the ultimate dog truth – everything is our favorite.
Loyal readers of this column may recall that I have previously said that although I like to think of myself as a dog for all seasons, the truth is that I loved fall the best.
Well the truth is that was when fall, was well, fall. But now it’s winter and I’ve discovered a new truth, one that is more in keeping with my doglike nature – that truth isn’t something you can bottle up and put on a shelf and then take it down and just look at it forever. It’s more like a cloud that looks like a rabbit the first time you lift your head, and then when you shake your head a second later looks more like a duck. Rabbit, or duck? The truth is, it depends.
Which is my roundabout way of saying that now that the snows have fallen, I find that winter is my favorite season. Sure fall was great when I was romping through the leaves and admiring the way the wind painted the woods my favorite color which of course was golden. And I admit I may have favored the fall at the time because it offered the hope of thinning camouflage for squirrels with the promise that I might catch one when the days grew short.
But of course I didn’t. And it’s beginning to look like the trees could be bare year around and my master could outfit me with infrared goggles and any able-bodied squirrel would still be safe. And the more I go through the seasons I have to admit that fall was my favorite season because it was fall, but now that it’s winter, it’s winter. Dogs are like that. Never trust us to answer a question about our favorites because the truth is – and this is the ultimate dog truth – everything is our favorite.
It’s what makes us so doggish.
But back to winter. Can anything match a romp through six foot high drifts that cover up the trails where the leaves are but a memory, and dogs don’t really do memory very well. Or the sheer excitement of catching the scent of a hibernating vole who thinks he is safe just because he’s burrowed into a foot of frozen ground? Can there be anything more relaxing than unearthing a stick from beneath a pile of fresh fallen snow and then chewing on it for hours while wondering why it is that snow falls down and not say, up?
Well, can there?
I say no. And if it were true at the time that fall was my favorite then is it any less true that winter is my favorite now. Or is it perhaps more true, or equally true-ish (a philosophical quagmire if ever I heard one) as Ralph Waldo Emerson’s dog once said that a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds. That, I suppose, is a question best left to hobgoblins, but in the meantime I say, “let it snow.”
The nice thing about being a dog is that you get all the joys of winter without any of the human hassles that seem to accompany the season. For example did you ever see a dog with a snow brush or ice scraper wishing he lived in Florida? I doubt it. Or a dog looking at three feet of freshly fallen snow and thinking to himself that the first thing that should be done is to shovel it away?
Of course not.
Or a dog fighting with his wife about whether he should turn up the heat, or she should get a sweater. That is silly on so many levels that even a dog wouldn’t answer.
No, for us ice scrapers are for chewing when sticks can’t be found. Snow is for romping and since we spend our time on all fours and are built close to the ground, we seldom fall and sliding is just plain fun. As for snow removal, well isn’t that what the sun is for? And for the grand sweater/vs heat debate; don’t make us laugh.
Just about the only drawback to snow is that sometimes I have to remind my master that it’s time to go out even if he’d rather stay home. But isn’t that why God made us charming and never burdened us with indoor plumbing?
As for that consistency thing, remind me to mention that to the next hobgoblin I meet in the snowy woods with the thick flakes falling on my warm nose. And when I do, I intend to tell him in no uncertain terms that winter is my favorite season.
Unless that is, we happen to meet in spring.
See you around the snow drifts.
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