måndag 18 januari 2016

How to walk dogs in the cold.

I have 3 tiny dogs, that for some reason, every winter thinks they are from Spain. The cold and quite often wet weather seems to take them by complete surprise, every year.

As it gets colder I make them wear some sort of clothing. The sweaters they are sort of ok with, but not the jackets. Not the ones for when it´s really, really cold.

Let´s go for a walk then shall we.

-Ok doggies, time for a walk.
One dog jumps down from the sofa, wagging her tail, One ignores me and one turns her tummy up for me to pet it. Like this would magically make me forget all about walks.
I bring their clothes. Dog with wagging tail stops wagging, belly rub dog tries to hide in dog igloo and ignoring dog actually comes to me, but only because this is when her dad usually starts bribing them with treats.

So put coat on now unhappy dog, try to get dog out of igloo and dress her and then put clothes on last dog.
We are at this point still in the living room.
Out to hallway and dress myself in my arctic survival gear.

Call dogs. No dogs appear. But the cats do. They have learned that this is when the humans sometimes throws a treat on the floor in order to get the dogs to come out from the other room.
After i have broken down and do indeed bribe the dogs I now got 2 dogs and almost all of the cats in the hallway.
After igloo dog continue to ignore me I go too look for her. I find her very cleverly hiding, in the igloo. So pouring her out of it and off we go. To the hallway.

Now at the door trying to convince the dogs to go through. And trying to convince cat not to. Cat has learned the in order to get dogs out of door and down staircase, the human will sometimes throw treats down the first flight of stairs.

All dogs is on right side of door. And so is cats.

One dog won´t walk down stairs because of coat, one want me to carry her since it is the evening walk, and she mysteriously looses the ability to walk down stairs most evenings. She will how ever be perfectly fine running up the stairs later on. Igloo dog likes to walk down the 4 flight of stairs very, very slowly. Preferably the human is already at the bottom. Making it able for the dog to play peek-a-boo. This means stopping at every landing and looking down at human through bars. Human then has to acknowledge the dog by saying hello.
This usually takes awhile. Sometimes the light go out since no one has moved.
I am now very warm in my arctic survival gear.

We go outside!
Outside one dog finishes her business almost at once, and think we should go inside. One won´t walk because she thinks her jacket is stupid. She is however very capable of walking in it, if, and only if, I take her off her leach.She is also ok with me carrying her.
The last one will want to stay out and walk for as long as possible. If it´s not too cold and the evil snow will make her paws hurt.

We go back inside.
All dogs run up the stairs to our door. Run inside when door open.
Back in sofas. All is well. End of walk.


Ett foto publicerat av Mrs C (@metika)