I thought I would save you from any more pictures of Grumpa this week. So that leaves my new cover for Blàs; Roots in the Soil, the Dandie or the snow. (Instead of dry January I am trying treeless blogs February).
As you can see I took a combination of the dog and the snow. I couldn’t compete with all the bonnie photographs of the Highlands in the freeze. There are some amazing pictures out there full of pristine white mountains, reflecting icicles and frozen lochs and waterfalls. Most exhibiting how stunning and magical Scotland can appear.
The snow in my garden no longer looks so clean or virgin white. It has been stamped on quite violently and in the name of a good cause. Notably Bosie the Dandie Dinmont Terrier.
Why didn’t we consider how a wee stumpy legged dog would manage in the snow? It came as quite an eye open when our husky was around. Off we went down to the park. Off the husky ran gleefully into the snow blizzard, jumping, running and having all sorts of fun. And there the Dandie stood surrounded by a mountain of snow and nowhere to go.
Give her her due. She did try. Leaping up onto the snow to fall right back down again. Her long back struggling to manage as her pal appeared in clouds of white stuff to jump over her in delight before disappearing off into the glorious falling snow.
Again and again she lumbered up and down the deep heaps until she turned those seal like brown eyes on me. Encrusted snowballs covered her legs and paws. Her underbelly was fringed with dangling balls of ice. She had covered maybe 3 foot of ground in her struggle. Some dogs are just not made for snowy conditions. I had never considered this before.
Dandie Dinmont Terriers maybe short but they are not as light as you would expect. Trust me heaving one from the Links to home was not an easy task, especially given that the husky was still intend on making the most of all that cold lovely white stuff.
We all eventually arrived back home. One totally hyped and happy husky, one still snow balled encrusted Dandie, one owner tired, frozen and soaking wet from carrying said Dandie.
We have learnt from that. Unfortunately our husky is no longer here. He would have loved all this weather. We wouldn’t have been able to keep him in. He would have slumbered outside and created little melted areas that his buddy Bosie could have moved around in. Eventually, he would have fashioned a race track around the garden with Bosie hurtling behind in his wake. The husky unwittingly helping his rather vertically challenged wee pal.
So without the husky’s help what could we do? A path had been created to the bird table anyway which meant that anytime the Dandie went out she could run around and do a circuit of the bird feeder, feel she had secured the area from the pesky birds and happily run back inside, job done.
But like us in lockdown, her world has gotten smaller. Her ability to run and move around had been hampered a great deal. The grit on the roads hurt her feet. The snow on the paths and parks are too deep for her to deal with. Even the loch is a no go area.
Luckily enough for us she is so small we can play fetch, tug o war and other games in the house that don’t totally destroy our home. Fetch was almost impossible to do without some sort of casualty with our bigger dogs, so having a smaller one is not all bad.
It is not the same though for her or for us not having that outdoor freedom. So under the sentiment of “greater love hath no man than this” (or woman in this case) for a Dandie, than to trudge wee mini steps around the garden to create a path. A Dandie path, a race track, a thing of pure joy for the love of a dog.