WHITE DOG IN THE SNOW

We're nipped in all the ways of winter, house bound, stir crazy or lethargic

depending on the wind or the snow. Sometimes at night it feels as

if death is circling around; it whistles like a scythe.My old ones are older than old.

They are stubborn, argumentative, deaf, dotty, redundant, and I love them.

The old dogs are as old as my old. Sometimes my old black Australian

shepherd can't make it up the stairs. I carry her up like grunting

luggage. She doesn't like that much.

My other dog is a white hunting dog, and sometimes he can't get up fast,

but he can run. Snow on the ground is his favorite time to hunt. Blends

in and can sneak up.

Dad usually calls him in at around ten, but sometimes he disappears.

This happened just last week. My sister found him buried in the leaf-pile

in the morning, and concluded that he intended to crawl away and die.

Even shed a few conclusive tears as she

asked me to be sure to bring him in the next night.

But he was not to be found at nine, or ten, or midnight when the first

flurries began to fall. I called with the wind bounding back at me

from the backdrop of the woods.

Suddenly I heard the deer before I saw them, and up from the leaf

pile rose my old white dog in a flurry who had lain in ambush for them ,

then all were gone.

Better to chase deer at midnight than to sit inside chewing a bone.