Snow Bunnies...er Shelties

Our first snow accumulation of the year occurred yesterday. Just a few inches-not enough for a Sheltie to go "snow burrowing." As far as I know this is Debbie's first snow that she's actually able to enjoy, though I could be wrong. It's certainly the first since she was rescued from the puppy mill. She didn't seem either particularly excited or daunted by it. Just another day it seemed and she ran and played in the yard with Duncan as usual.

Duncan, if you remember, showed me his first signs of joy last year when we encountered his first snow together. (Probably not his first ever, but his first with me.) When I took him out on that cold morning he stepped off the deck and was immediately hip deep in the stuff, and his first order of business was to burry his entire head in a snow dive. He came up with white all over his furry little face and looked at me with that 'Sheltie smile' of his. There's not enough snow to do that yet this year.

This morning when I took them out, Debbie seemed to be concerned about her cold tootsies and just sat down on the snow covered deck. But Debbie doesn't sit like most dogs. She was living on wires when she was in the puppy mill instead of a solid floor - a cruel way to make life easier for the keepers in cleaning up after the dogs. Very hard and painful on a poor Sheltie's feet. As a result, she doesn't sit on her hind legs, but clear back on her rear with her hind legs out in front of her. It's a little funny looking until you consider the reason she does this. But this morning, not only did she sit on her rear, she also lifted her hind feet up off the cold snow so that she was balanced just on her back side and her front two feet. She's such a silly little girl!

I'll have pictures soon. It was too dark to take any good ones when I got home last night.