WINTERTIME IN THE GREAT LAKES STATE

I enjoy snow. Seriously. I like how it coats the trees, I like how it looks when it falls from the darkening sky. I am a fan of slip-sliding and sledding; and I have skates to swoosh across frozen lakes. I'd much rather be too cold than too hot. As an ancillary note--not that I'm anticipating either of these scenarios, but--it is far more pleasant to pass on to the Other Side through exposure to extreme cold than to expire due to extreme heat--say, an inferno, for example. My point is that I am more than comfortable with Michigan winters.

(Hell, at least I'm not living in New York right now! One area, off the lake, has gotten 8 FEET OF SNOW...within five days. Jesus.)

What was I saying, again? Oh yeah: My point is that I am more than comfortable with Michigan winters. I wish that I could say the same for Louie. Sure, he loves to prance around in newly-fallen snow. And he's a fan of the new smells that come with snowfall; apparently, they are muted, in a way, because he is always stopping to swipe at the snow with his paw and bury his nose in the ground, emerging, grinning, like Tony Montana in "Scarface," with white sugaring his snout. But...

Here in Michigan, we use rock salt to combat the snow and to keep the roads clear. I'd never thought about the ramifications on a doggy's tender paw until last winter, when I was walking The Lou and he'd stopped all of a sudden and, looking up at me with his eyes wide and his ears back, started to whimper and mewl like a kitten/puppy. Yes...he'd caterwauled. He'd held his front paw up, like he'd been trying to Shake, and looked at me as if to say, "Dad? Dad?!" I'd been filled with pity...and confusion. "You were fine just a second ago...what the fuck happened? You all right, kid?" He'd just looked at me and mewled. Eventually we started off towards the apartment and, though limping heavily, he'd been right as rain in a few minutes.

Curious. Later I told the girl who I'd been seeing at that time about what had happened and she'd said that the rock salt was bad on the doggies' paws. I had not made the connection. Color me dumb. (That color is mauve.)

So, it continued this year. I've been trying to keep Lou on the snow. It works better, that way. Earlier this morning, I took him on a walk to the mailbox. It's down the road a bit, in the parking lot of a business office building. He got halfway through the lot and then sat down, holding his shaking paw up and looking at me and mewling. I tried to take his paw in my hand and he tremblingly put his mouth around my hand. Lou doesn't bite. I (hopefully) trained him early and often about that. And I could see that he didn't want to bite my hand; that he was just in piercing pain. I tried to put myself in his shoes...paws. Rock salt eats away snow. And it reacts, chemically, to snow and ice. Put that on a bare appendage--say a foot or a paw or a penis--and I think that it probably feels like acid, an increasingly-potent burn. Ouch. Now I see why those tools who dress their dogs up do what they do. Have you ever seen dogs in boots? (Kinda like Puss in Boots, but real-life and with a dog?) Maybe those boots really work. Looks lame, though.

So, anyway. We made it to the mailbox, Lou limping heavily, and I deposited my mail into the box and I deposited Lou into my arms and I carried him back across the parking lot. To passersby, I probably looked thilly. Question: Do you think I gave a shit? No. Nope. It tears me up to see my boy whimpering like that--so pathetic--so I will lift him up and carry him, if I must.

I need to workout anyways. =)