Dazzle in a snow drift
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While we have gotten several more inches of snow, I think it's reached "critical mass." Even though it's light and fluffy, the new stuff is packing down the previous stuff so it doesn't look as deep. Because it's so powdery, Dazzle has been having a blast running with his head in it! I hope to get this on video, but he never seems to do it when I have the camera ready and by the time I get it ready while he's doing it, he has stopped. But I'm still trying!
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Something else I hope to get on video (if I can) is the squirrels going to the neighbor's feeder. They come down off the trees on the hill and dissapear into the snow. Then you see the snow moving as they jump through it, completely blind to where they are going because they can't jump high enough to break the surface. Then they pop-up onto a fence post, climb up and fight their way through the snow on top of the fence (not sure how they haven't cleared it all off yet). They have to drop back down into the snow to get between the end of the fence around the garden to the porch where the feeders are. It is really comical. But given the distance and the fact that the moving snow is white on white, I don't know if my video camera will be able to pick it up. Dazzle enjoyed watching them though:
The squirrel is under the snow in front of the shed and completely invisible. I'm sure that if Dazzle wasn't on the cable, the squirrel would be no more.
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Zoom! Leaping through the snow.
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On Sunday, before the snow got so deep, I did take Dazzle out to he warehouse district to find a plowed parking lot where I could throw the smaller balls with the chuck-it and really let him run. He was getting a bit stir crazy without his twice daily runs like this (just can't throw the Jolly Ball far enough) :-). Though my dad and I briefly discussed (Red Green style) how we could design a big sling shot for it using the posts on either side of the stairs of the back deck. LOL
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My plan sort of worked. He still spent a lot of time searching for the balls when they left the plowed part and went into the deeper snow. Good thing he has such a good nose! No way I'd have found them. We did lose one when I got over zealous with my toss and it went on top of the building. I laughed out loud at the look Dazzle gave as he stopped... looked up to the 2 story high flat roof... then looked at me as if to say "way to go MOM". Then came trotting back. I could just about hear his heavy sigh of exasperation with me and my poor throws. LOL
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Since it's now too deep to really go anywhere, we have been doing a lot of work on the stairs to try to wear him out. He will walk backwards up the stairs if I'm at the bottom and will do a "controlled fall" sort of backing down the stairs if I'm at the top. I taught him by starting with just one step, then two then three and so on till he could do it. While he CAN walk down backwards slowly and with precision, he seems to like the controlled fall better and does that version more often. He LOVES to back-up and does it on his own if he thinks it might get me to toss the ball. :-) I got this on video, but need to wait till I get back home to edit it and create an uploadable format.
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When the kids visit, they (especially little Ava) love tossing the ball for him after telling him "back" on the stairs. Ava's mom asked her "How do you tell Dazzle to go up the stairs?" and she said "back!" She also says his name really well and when her mom told her I was coming to visit their house, she said "Dazzle?"
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I hear Dazzle pacing by the back door, so it's time to let him out to play again.
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