First Snowfall

December 14, 2013

     Three to five inches of snow are covering New York.  I have been planning to visit a sale of dog coats and blankets at an apartment off Central Park West, a few blocks away.  Beauregard needs a coat for winter, and I am guessing that the offerings of Northward Hound will surpass those I've seen at Petland and Petco.

     However, getting to 108th off Central Park West in the midst of a snowstorm is made more difficult by the near-ubiquitous sowing of salt over the sidewalks, a knee-jerk reaction of building superintendents.  The salt burns the paws of dogs, although owners use shea butter ointments, or, famously, Musher's Wax to protect dog paws.  Notwithstanding, anyone with a dog will opt for walking in the street, or in my case, picking up the dog and carrying it over the unavoidably salty sections.

     This isn't as easy as it might seem, particularly when you're carrying a hot cup of tea in a styrofoam cup in one hand, holding the leash in the other.  Beau resists being carried, and at one point he is suspended head down facing the sidewalk, but we get to the apartment in relatively short order.

     The two women behind Northward Hound are New Hampshire natives who also board dogs at a horse farm half the year  while continuing to sell their products online.  It is not difficult to find a lovely coat for Beau and two blankets he can travel with.

     On the way back, I choose to go via Central Park North, then turn into Morningside Park, which is when Beau experiences has his first outdoor romp.  The park is virtually deserted and the blanket of snow made for a rambunctious puppy.  Beau is warm enough, and the park is free of traffic, except for a flock of Canadian geese frolicking in the park's pond.  I don't mind the cold, but the birds' pleasure in the freezing water marks them off from homo sapiens, and dogs, too.  Beau does not register their existence, preferring to enjoy the white stuff, and respite from my martinet demand that he "heel", whenever we walk on the sidewalks and streets.

     Beau is fourteen weeks old, and he has been penned and confined at my home since he was born.  So it is a joy to see him carom from one end to the other of the leash's reach.  At the end of the walk he bounds up the many steps ascending to Morningside Drive with ease --I am also thinking he will sleep once we are home, having tired himself out thoroughly on this first outing.

     Sure enough, once home, I layout the largest of the new blankets on the floor, coax Beau onto it, then cover him with the smaller.  In moments, he is sound asleep.

      Why should the pleasure of this little dog please me so?  It says something about my nature, which finds satisfaction in nurturing animals more than humans.  Dogs are less complicated than people, even if they can't tell you exactly what they're thinking.  And their affection is so genuine, so immediately expressed (--as is their displeasure, too).

       I think it's also that dogs are more forgiving than people.  In the four weeks Beau has been my charge, I've disciplined him ceaselessly, to the purpose of training him before he is full grown, when the physical demands would be perhaps beyond my abilities.  I have had him on the shortest of leashes, pulled up by the neck on our brief walks; I have forced him off tray tables, bottom bookcase shelves; I have stuck my hand down his throat to extract some piece of newspaper he has chewed; I have pulled his lips back to look at his teeth, and I have shoved him into his crate when I have to go out and he will not willingly go.

      Yet no matter: the tempest over, he comes up and licks my face.  What human being is capable of such generosity of spirit?