Melting snow walk

I took Max and Maya both out to walk today.  I generally keep Max strictly indoors like Maya, not because he's a fence climber like her, but because he gets overstimulated in the outdoors unless he's on a leash.  In the dog yard or pasture he tends to go into his tail spin routine.  I do take him out there with other dogs occasionally, but he gets most of his exercise on leashed walks with Maya.

The sun was shining for much of the morning and early afternoon and the snow was melting fast.  I decided to venture out onto the trails.  It was tough walking and slow going.  There was still probably at least 8" of snow on the ground, and now it's wet and heavy.  It finally occurred to me to connect the leashes behind my back and let the dogs provide some of my forward momentum.  That was helpful, especially when going uphill.  We did three miles but it felt more like 10.  Max and Maya enjoyed it and we even spotted a couple of deer in addition to many deer tracks.

Adventures don't always have to be in the wilderness.  There was something very satisfying about walking my dogs in pristine snow, untouched by all other than wildlife.  The dogs loved it.  The snow provided a clean slate of scent.  They sniffed every deer track and could probably identify each individual deer.  Noses were busy.

This is Max jumping after a snowball that I tossed
to  him.  He thought it was like any other ball.

When the snowball landed, however, it became
indistinguishable from the rest of the snow.
Max didn't know what to do, bless his heart.

Two roads diverged, but being covered in snow, we could not discern which was the
road less traveled by; Maya said "go left", and that made all the difference.

At the bend in the trail where Maya is looking
there are two deer, who stood frozen until I
yelled at them to move.  The picture to the right
is a close up showing the deer.

I saw them before the dogs did because the deer were
frozen.  I stopped to take a picture and then yelled to
move the deer out of the way before the dogs really
focused in on them.  The dogs responded when they
moved but not much before that.

Deer spotting

The stream was partly frozen but it's only
ankle deep anyway, so we crossed.