Chapter Seven Tova's New Experience

My wife and I have been cross country skiing a number of years. We felt that since Tova was a year and a half and used to hiking with us, she would do well if we took her out in the woods while we cross country skied.

Two days before we are to go skiing my wife comes home with this fleece jacket which has a beautiful checkered assortment of colors. “This is Tova’s winter jacket. I don’t want her getting cold out there, she doesn’t have much hair,” says my wife.

Tova looks at me and of course we have to try the jacket on.

What another one. What is it with you people? I’m a dog I don’t need a coat.

Actually, it looks beautiful on her. My wife is so pleased and after a few minutes even Tova is starting to act as if she feels important in it.

Oh this is neat, I feel warm and fuzzy. Are we going out now?

Saturday arrives and the three of us load up and head out to Depot Road in Auburn NH.

There are plenty of trails there to cross country ski or snow mobile if you have one. In the spring they make good hiking and bike trails.

My wife purchased new bindings for our skis this year and they were a marked improvement over the original bindings that came with the packages.

We load Tova in the Suburban and place the skis and poles in the back.

What are they for? Are they for me? I don’t know about this now…

We are fortunate to find a parking spot and we take out the skiing equipment and remove Tova and place a leash on her to safely cross the road.

Tova watches us putting on the skis and you can see the questions in her eyes, What are you doing? What are they for?

Of course she didn’t have any skis to adjust to. Her good personality of staying close and having a lot of fun running in the snow and trying to chew on scrub pine branches when she could, made us laugh, the three of us had a ball. She’s still in that puppy stage so we had to learn not to holler at her and confuse her. If she was insistent on not paying attention I used a whistle or the electronic collar to get her attention.

She looks at Linda and me gliding on the snow along with the help of our poles. It almost looks as if she is trying to figure out what we are doing.

I have a weird family. They are trying to walk around this stuff on sticks.