Just as predicted the temperature started increasing about the time the sunshine came out. It was almost too bright today and for a second I thought I might need to wear sunglasses on the walk based on the bright sunshine. While I was taking pictures of the snow, the ice, trees etc, Stella had snuck out to the field just behind the land of burrs. It was still pretty cold outside so I was curious to see how long she would stay out.
I could tell when I saw her doing that type of walking she was not going to be out too long because either her paw was cold or there was snow between her toes. She wasn't limping getting back to the path but I could tell her walking motion was not a smooth stride.
As I called her name she was more than willing to head back to the house, slightly limping. Of course she always has time to sniff at scent along the way.
Then she stopped to raise her rear leg. I was about to turn off the camera, slide it in my parka pocket and walk out to get her. At the same time, she started walking again toward the yard. So I waited to see if she was going to need to carried back to the house.
This is the pose of confusion. She can't figure out why she can't or doesn't want to walk. I kept calling her name to make it the rest of the way. You can see she is almost raising her rear leg again.
Back inside gave me time to do some house cleaning. The dishes were done by 9am so they were out of the way, laundry was last week, so the only thing left on the list today was trimming hound nails, cleaning hound ears and brushing them. I kept looking at my watch for the temperature outside as it creeped to 20°. I wanted to get outside today for the afternoon walk.
A little past 2pm it was 22° but a windchill of 11°. Would that be too cold for Stella to take a walk? How far would we get? Actually in the sunshine it did not feel too bad and she was already trotting away from me. She was showing a lot more energy than just a couple of hours ago.
One thing about snow is you can aways see the deer tracks, especially since we had not been out in the field since the snow on Saturday. As you see on the right side of the picture plus those I've included below ... a lot of deer traffic the past two days.
More deer tracks coming out of the woods, right of center of the picture.
Just to the left of me I noticed these deer tracks circling and then taking off diagonal across the field.
Those are not Stella's tracks nor mine.
As we made the first turn into the shade the temperature dropped at least 10° instantly. It was so much colder than where we had walk from. It was now that I wasn't sure we would complete the walk today.
More deer tracks going into the woods.
This walk is over !!!!
Notice how the right rear leg is lifted high? I knew we were going no further today and hopefully she'd make it back to the house with me having to carry her.
Once she figured out what was going on, she turned toward me, got on the path and started heading home. I didn't say a word.
Getting back into the bright sunshine really warmed things up. She stopped limping and walked a little faster than her normal afternoon pace. She must have remembered from two hours ago that a warm floor inside the house made her paws feel better.
Both pictures show new deer tracks.
As we walked into the yard with a blanket of smooth snow I could see there had not been any kind of animal traffic in the past two days.
I am not sure if Stella was thinking about sitting in the snow to scratch or what she was thinking. I turned and didn't see anything out in the field in the direction she was looking.
Slowly but surely she headed to the door. After we were inside, she and Heidi finished the last of the bone treats ... those strange grain free with the bacon flavor. Are those "keto" for dogs?? LOL
With the really cold temperature this morning I still can't complain about this winter. The temperatures have been right at the average for this time of year with highs in the mid-30s. We've had a lot of days in the mid-40's also.
I picked up a new show to watch that is only six episodes long. It's on the National Geographic channel, called Valley of the Boom ... about the start of the internet, explosive stock gains, a little corruption and the war between Netscape and Microsoft. Netscape use to my favorite browser back in the day and I hated to see it end when it did.
It was a cold but sunny day here in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana today.
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