Saturday, February 5, 2011

Basenji vs. Snow, Round 2

Following on Peggy's hilarious tales of Ivan and Dasa's brave battles with the snow this week, I thought I might be a copycat and relate my tales of Reef & Bikos's issues with the white stuff here in central NJ.






In Reef & Biko's yard in coastal NJ, we still have about two feet of snow on the ground, which has been there since Christmas. God only knows what kind of poop-sicles are buried underneath! Every day, the sun melts just a little snow off the top of the mess, but then every night the temperature drops and it re-freezes. The end result is still about 2 feet of snow, with an icy crust that is just strong enough to support a 20-lb basenji walking on top... most of the time.




When it comes time to go outside, Reef and Biko carefully pick their way through the ice melt on the patio, to the few patches of grass that I have shoveled out for them. However, just like Ivan and Dasa, if the cockapoo next door comes out, all snow is forgotten and they dash off across the frozen tundra in a race to be the first one to run the frantic lap up and down the fence line. The first day that the snow became ice, they looked back at me, confused, as they didn't sink in but instead sort of clumsily skittered and slid towards the fence. Being smart dogs, though, they soon realized the benefits of the ice, in that they could now reclaim their yard by simply walking on top of the sea of frozen white stuff. That is, until.... CRACK!

Like an icy lake, Reef found the weak spot in the crust, and in an instant she fell through and plunged in the entire two feet up to her neck. Watching from the door, I thought I was going to have to go rescue her.... until a split second later, she shot straight upwards 3 feet above the snow! I swear, I knew my dogs could jump a killer vertical, but this was like she'd been blasted out of a cannon at full speed. Crazed, she went winging around the yard, paws breaking through ice at times but running so fast that she no longer fell in. I stood at the door, laughing so hard I cried, and barely managed to yank open the sliding glass door before she barreled full speed into it.


Biko, still preoccupied with fence-chasing the cockapoo next door, saw none of this, and five minutes later when he decided he wanted to come in, he came trotting happily back on top of the lake of white. Of course, I knew what was coming.... CRACK! One second I could see a dog, and the next second all I could see was a little brindle nose poking out from the snow drift. Unlike Reef, however, my careful little boy stood there for a minute, dazed, as he tried to figure out what in the heck just happened. Soon my little brindle boy valiantly clawed his way back to the surface, then came inside and licked his paws indignantly while he shot me looks that said, "Why didn't you tell me that would happen!?!" I know it was mean, but I still couldn't help but laugh :)



1 comment:

  1. I like how Reef and Biko are stopped by their *snowfence* in the top picture, so cute!

    ReplyDelete