Ice Follies

Hello. This is The Daily Bone and I’m your athletic doggie host Chester L. W. Spaniel.

What a surprise! Today it looked bright and sunny out. I was expecting lots of glorious mud. But, as they say here in WNY, if you don’t like the weather, just wait a minute. It was actually bitterly cold out, and all the melted slush from the warm weather yesterday was now frozen solid. Intrepid as I am, I rushed right out and, incidentally, flushed a flock of birds from a bush. This is what cocker spaniels are supposed to do! Hooray! I proceeded to quarter the rest of the yard to see if there were any more birds in the bushes on the perimeter of the fence. The snow was mostly crystalline and crunchy underfoot, except where there were sheets of ice.

Before I began exploring the area under the silver maple for squirrel tracks, my stolid associate Joseph (Joey dog) Spaniel had an important safety announcement to make.

May I have your attention please. According to the Yum Yum Coalition safe practices guidebook, it is advisable to use extreme caution when crossing any icy area. Furthermore, before doggies attempt to cross stretches of unevenly frozen slush simply for the purpose of our humans obtaining photographs, there must be compensation in the form of yum yum doggie treats, specifically Milkbone Marrow Snacks.

Wow! Joey dog sure is smart! Having foreseen this possibility, our human had a whole pocket full of our favorite mouth-watering yum yum Milkbone Marrow Snacks. Of course, I was in too much of a hurry to get those delicious treats to be careful.

Whoops! 

Yipes!

Joey dog snorted at me and then demonstrated the safe way to walk across ice. He says, at his age he has to be careful, and I should be too, since I'm not getting any younger. With age comes a certain dignity and grace, not to mention arthritic joints.

I shall try to be more careful now. 

NOT!