This stinks. It must be Mother Nature's way of getting back at us for that wonderful, warm & snow-free winter we had last year.
Things have been a mess since the storm on Sunday. Everything packed down and froze just enough that the slightly just-above freezing temperatures weren't able to get everything melted over the last two days. Last night it POURED buckets of rain with a thunderstorm -- in January! We woke up around midnight to a big kaboom. Secret was totally taken by surprise and had a little freak-out. We'd (errr, I'd....) fallen asleep on the couch and she bolted for the bedroom when we heard that. The big crack of thunder was immediately followed by the downpour, so we had to wait a bit for it to let up before the dogs could go out for a final potty break; and then I practically had to shove Secret out the door. She's no fool, she knows it's not supposed to thunder in January.
Tonight the temperatures start to drop and rain is supposed to turn into 3-6" of snow. Then, as if that wasn't awesome enough, we are going to drop into the sub-zeros for a couple of days. Considering my yard is currently a swamp of standing water that will soon be a giant brick of ice covered by snow, that means *no* activity for the dogs for the foreseeable future. :o(
Last night everything was still ice, so we were stuck indoors. Generally the day after a trial isn't that bad and we can lay pretty low -- but then I remembered that Secret & Luke only had two runs and were plenty full of themselves. We ended up utilizing the basement play room for the first time this year and spent a good 40 minutes down there just tugging and doing short fetches across the room. Everyone was panting and I succeeded in having a quiet night.
Tonight I packed the dogs up as soon as I got home and drove the block or so to a park with a big open area (hey, you try walking a block with dogs who are going bonkers over the Chuck-it and you'd understand why I drove, lol). I'd driven past the park on my way home to confirm that it did, indeed, have a large swath of dry land that we could use for running. Yay!
This is when I learned that Secret's brain falls out of her ears and she apparently does not understand the concept of fetching away from home. She saw the big open area and promptly went, "Wheeee!" She just ran after Luke a few times as he went after his ball, made a few laps for the fun of it and then set about to sniffing everywhere and wandering into neighboring yards (which got her yelled at). I did eventually get her to do several long fetches to get some good sprints in, but I surely would have preferred to run the snot out of her more than I was able to. When it was clear that her brain was completely fried, we packed it in and came home.
So, note to self: Work on your dog's fetching skills away from home....
Meanwhile, we'll be hunkering down and spending our evenings in the basement. Good thing I pumped up the theraball.
Brrr
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