Kona In Socks

    When it gets really frigid outside it doesn’t take Kona long to get cold feet.  She starts lifting a foot off of the snow or sometimes just sits down, not wanting to walk any further.  I then have to pick her up and carry her back to the house, which is sometimes awkward on the narrow snowy path.  To solve her cold feet problem my wife came up with the idea of putting some socks on her, held up with blue elastic bindings.  This extends the time Kona can comfortably be outside, but getting the socks onto Kona’s feet is a time consuming process, so often, with false optimism, we just take her out sans socks.

    Taking Kona outside to do her business becomes a frustrating ordeal when it is cold (-25°C, -13°F at present).  It wouldn’t be so bad if she just went out, quickly did what she needed to do, and then came back into the house, but life is not that simple with Kona.  First, she has to be kept on a leash or she will run off, tracking some wild animal back into the woods, that means each time she needs to go out, we have to put on all of our winter gear, coat, hat, boots, and gloves, then lead her along on of the snowshoe paths I have made.

    While she’s in the house, Kona will suddenly realize that she needs to pee, so she will paw us and look us in the eye, but then the moment she gets outside, she forgets, and starts to focus all of her attention on smelling all of the deer tracks.  After a few minutes, she has cold feet, doesn’t want to walk, and needs to go back into the house to warm up, her need for peeing forgotten.  Needless to say this is extremely frustrating after we have spent the time getting all dressed up to go outside.

    Adding to the frustration is Kona’s peculiar excretion habits.  For some reason, she can’t just go out and poop or pee; she is extremely picky about where it can be done.  She has a strong impulse to do whatever business she has, in fluffy snow.  However, each time she tries to step off of the packed path into the 18 inch (45 cm) deep snow, she sinks up to her chest, so she gets frustrated, returns to the path and proceeds further down the trail, not realizing that she will face the same problem no matter how far down the path she goes.  Then of course, the cold feet start to be problematic.  

    Eventually she will ignore her deep-seated impulse for fluffy snow and will do her business on the path.  The whole situation of taking Kona outside has been frustrating for both her and for us.  Fortunately snow muffles the sound and we have no close neighbors, so our constant pleadings, “Kona, just pee.” and “Come on and poop, Kona,” just go out into the frigid air without disturbing anyone.

     The cold temperatures will be with us for a week, so I sure hope Kona will eventually figure out she needs to just concentrate and be quick about what she needs to do out there, so she can quickly get back into the house.

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