Snowday

I’m wearing two pairs of socks and huge hiking boots. Granted, huge hiking boots are the only sort that fit me. I am doing something that is a little too fast to be called trudging, and considerably too slow to be called running. It’s something in between, and it’s the best I can muster.

The Pacific Northwest doesn’t get much snow – at least, not by the standards of someone who grew up in New York State. On the rare winter days when it snows here, it doesn’t usually stick around for long. Today is different – today we have real snow.

Boomer hails from Wenatchee and shares my appreciation for the genuine article. He turned twelve years old last autumn, but that doesn’t stop him from probing the cold powder like a pup. I can’t ignore the fact that he’s aging, though. For one thing, his hearing has begun to deteriorate. Sometimes he doesn’t hear me when I call him. In fact, that’s why I’m on his trail right now. We need to turn around and head home, but he’s oblivious to my shouts. He cruises unswervingly onward into the west.

As much as I don’t really want to be chugging up this snowy hill, I’m conscious of at least two good things about it. The first is that I am, amazingly enough, gaining on my little canine friend. The second is that my wife has joined us on this walk, and she’s watching me. It occurs to me mid-huff, that (puff…) I’m showing off for her. I’m proving that the old buck can still hoof it on the high places. We’re able to share this unspoken fiction because, to her great credit, my wife chooses to see me through the charitable lens of her imagination.

I’ve closed to within five or six feet of Boomer and he still hasn’t heard me coming up behind him. An old memory flickers into focus. I see myself as a young Scout, furtively following my Dad through the woods. He was helping me earn a merit badge that had something to do with tracking. My challenge was to follow him for a specified period of time without being seen or heard.

It was autumn, so the ground was covered with dead leaves and brittle twigs. That didn’t matter. I moved with the quick, decisive stealth of a Mohawk brave. I remember scampering from tree to tree, crouching behind mossy stumps, and going flat in the undergrowth whenever my Dad looked around. It was so exciting to discover this hidden talent of mine!

At the end of the prescribed span of minutes my Dad stopped walking and called off the hunt. As he checked the box next to the tracking requirement in my Scout book, I asked him how I’d done. With the vaguest trace of a smirk he told me that I’d sounded something like a young buffalo. I was pretty sure “Young Buffalo” wasn’t the name of a famous Mohawk brave from days gone by.

But today I’m panting up a snowy hill after a hard-of-hearing dog. Even with my limited aptitude for stealth, Boomer hasn’t yet perked to my crashing footfalls. From pointblank range I shout his name, and he swivels around in shock. His ears go back, and he curls into a submissive pose. This is unprecedented in his experience with me so he isn’t sure what’s going to happen next. He fears it might involve punishment. It doesn’t. I’ve learned lately that his problem isn’t rebellion (well, at least not in this case); his problem is entropy.

I say, “C’mon, let’s go home.” Relieved and chipper he makes for the foot trail that leads toward home. He’s a puppy again for a few more minutes. I let him run a little ways farther before putting his leash back on him.