Salty Dog

Has your dog ever been in pain and buried their face in your lap while whimpering?  It’s awful.  Kids cry all the time but they’re a bunch of babies.  Dogs, on the other hand, are stoic creatures.  They put your needs before their own and will not tell you something is wrong unless it’s absolutely necessary.  I recently wrote about my walk with Wrigley that ceased a few blocks from our house because she could no longer stand.  I still haven’t bought her any boots…while she’s tolerant of a lot, she’s been less than cooperative about letting me measure her foot properly (I really need to enlist the husband’s help).  So I picked her up some Musher’s Secret to hold us over until we get boots.  It’s a wax you apply to the paws that’s supposed to last a week or so.  I put some on her a few days ago and she didn’t like it one bit – but I at least covered her front paws and we had no problems in occasional areas of salt.  We set off this morning and I considered reapplying some, but figured with only a mere dusting of snow, there wouldn’t be much salt out there.  Boy was I ever wrong.

Before ever having a dog, I was never really aware of exactly how much salt the city puts out there on the roads.  Sure, I paid attention to plowing and observing if the street was icy – for the last several years I’ve spent at least 2 hours a day in my car – I wouldn’t be a very good driver if I didn’t pay attention to that stuff.  But I guess it never occurred to me the vast amounts of salt that get dumped on the road even for a light dusting of snow.

We began in the Eagle Hill area where there are few sidewalks to be found.  We barely made it a block before Wrigley started hobbling on 3 legs before stopping completely and whimpering.  I knelt down and had her “shake” so I could brush off her paws.  This was when she buried her face in my lap.  Poor puppy.  I cleaned off her feet and we tried to stay in yards until we got to Western Ave where we could walk on sidewalks where people thankfully had not put out salt.  Of course, crossing side streets was tough.  Each time we crossed, Wrigs stopped and lifted her paws one by one so I could brush them off while she whined.  Luckily dogs have good hearts and once her paws were cleaned off she trotted away as if nothing was wrong…until we got to the next side street.

In the future I will not underestimate the city’s strong desire to salt the crap out of the roads for no reason (they must be overcompensating for this extraordinarily dry winter) and make sure my gal is protected with boots or Musher’s Secret. easily trainable dogs