The Dog Days of Winter

Transcript

OPEN: Whether you favor skis, skates, boards, or snowshoes, the winter woods of Pennsylvania can be a playground. Commentator, hobby farmer, and search-and-rescue dog handler Ken Chiacchia reminds us how our furried friends can make cold weather activities more rewarding -- for dog and human alike.

I love our little farm year-round -- but it's a special joy to ski our fields and woods. So when an early December dump put a good four or five inches on the ground, I popped out the front door, cross-country skis in hand.

I was not alone; along for the trip were our four farm collies. They're my wife, Heather's, and my companions and search and rescue working partners.

Winter outings are as rewarding as the human/canine partnership gets. For one thing, there's that hearty presence that they add to any endeavor, that shot of unapologetic joy. And at end of day, you get calm, tired, contented dogs sleeping by the fire.

In the winter, dogs particularly come into their own.

Dogs are fun in the warm-weather months, of course. But they have to do just about everything uphill, in a figurative sense. The heat is a real problem when you have a 24-hour fur coat; the humidity makes it hard to dump body heat by panting. For search dogs, it's even worse -- summer convection causes warm air to rise everywhere, diluting the scent they need to find people.

In the winter, all those problems go away. Oppressive heat gives way to winter chill; fur becomes boon rather than burden. There's a sharpness, a playfulness to them that you don't see when they're beat down by the summer heat. As Heather says, it's the time of year when you get your dog back.

Heather and I have shared dogs for almost 20 years now; with that kind of history, it's hard not to get a little misty over friends no longer with us. Lilly was our first. Solemn even as a puppy, this gentle German shepherd tended toward the dour. As she grew, she developed a sense of humor that invariably involved me falling on my behind. I'd take a spill going down a tricky run, and she'd dance around me, prancing in and back to lick my face, ignoring my torrent of angry monkey chatter.

Mel, our second German shepherd, was a vastly different dog -- she had a gentler sense of humor about Daddy's foibles, but never did grasp the idea that you can't stop short on skis. I remember one particular time, skiing with Lilly and Mel on Pennsylvania's Chestnut Ridge, when Mel stopped and looked back at me lovingly. Problem was, at the time I was hurtling down a moderately steep, narrow trail. It was either run into my dog or run into the bushes. I adored Mel; I chose the bushes.

As I struggled back to my feet, another group skied past. They warned me, pointedly, and in a nondescript European accent, that the trail ahead was steep. I wanted to make excuses; the fall wasn't really my fault. But I realized it would only sound desperate. I didn't even try to explain. Lilly, all the while, supplied drive-by kisses. She thought it was hilarious.

Venturing into the snow with canine companions isn't for everybody. Off-leash control and friendliness toward strangers are a must. If you don't know for sure that Fido can handle that, you probably need to do some training. And you need to know what you're doing; on skis you canít stop immediately, and so you need to recognize when you can handle a slope, know when to turn back, and be willing to bail out safely if you make a mistake. If you're in over your head you just sit down; it's simple, but it's never pretty. And you look like an idiot.

I'm comfortable skiing tight, steep little hiking trails, have the back-country ski equipment to do it. (Say it with me: full metal edges.) I can add a dog to the equation without killing myself. If you're at all iffy about your skiing, try snowshoes instead.

Iím a better skier today than I was with Lilly and Mel. Theyíre gone now. But Pip, our oldest at 10 years and our de facto chief of staff, helps keep their memory alive. In particular, she worshiped Lilly; Lilly was her mentor.

I wish I could paint an idyllic picture of our December ski outing. But the fact was, the ground was still warm, and below a powdery surface lay wet snow. It caked my skis, despite a precautionary layer of glide wax. It got messy: every few yards my skis lurched to a sudden halt. But I didn't.

As I lay there, cursing the gods, Pip danced in, licked my face, then danced away.