Cold Snap

The sun is not yet up, so it's too dark for me to see the light snow that started falling about an hour ago. It's not supposed to amount to much--a couple of inches, just enough to make the roads slippery, as they like to say on the radio, those fearmongers.

It's been a funny winter. Last year, you might recall, we got nailed with tons of snow--big snowfalls in December, followed by two- and three-inch "nuisance snows" nearly every day after that. Spring was late, and reluctant, and it felt like winter just held on and on. This year, winter is only now beginning, in mid-January.

I was grateful for the warm, dry weather all November and December. It made it so much easier to scoop up Boscoe and carry him outside every morning without first having to put on boots and parka and mittens. Made it easier for him, too, to toddle around the yard without having to navigate deep snow.

But since last Saturday, the weather has turned sharply colder. It snowed the day he died, and then the temperature plunged to ten below zero. This morning it is four above, and it is snowing.

People have been so nice, sending cards and poems and leaving comments here and on Facebook. One amazing person made a donation in Boscoe's name to a shelter on the East Coast that takes in disabled dogs.

So far, Riley has not exactly blossomed in his new role as Senior (Solo) Dog. His first day on the job, of course, he humiliated himself by vomiting all over the house and then pooping in the front hallway. Not his finest hour. (In his defense, he was nervous, and I think he had eaten a dead mouse.)

Since then his stomach has settled down, but he is back to his old standoffish ways--sleeping downstairs and keeping us a room away, though under surveillance.

He lies in his bed in the back corner of the dining room and stares out at me while I read on the couch. Hard to know what he wants; he's never been a dog who likes someone who hovers, and if I go over to pet him he will either tolerate it, or he'll get up and walk away.

If Boscoe was Bill Clinton--jovial, a big eater, a people-lover, working the room tirelessly--Riley, I fear, is Richard Nixon. Shy, wary, standoffish and suspicious. He would wear a suit on the beach. (But without the evil. There is no evil in that dog.)

So I let him lie there and stare, and I pat the couch next to me, and sometimes I can lure him over and sometimes I can't.

The other morning on the frigid walk, he suddenly wheeled around, went into a play bow, grabbed a stick, and started romping. We raced across the park, chasing sticks, getting so warm in the four-degree chill that I ripped off my mittens and stuffed them in my pocket.

We need more of that--more ebullience, and play, and flat-out running.  We're due a Patches visit this Saturday.  If anyone can shake that dog out of his malaise, she can.