As a general rule – remembering obedience training sessions I’ve attended with most of my canine companions over the years – when I walk a dog, I try to keep the dog on a leash and at my left side. I use the universal command, “Heel,” to keep the dog loping along at the same pace I’m walking. My current canine pal, Jazz, is still learning that command.
But for the first time since I got him about seven months ago, during Monday’s snowstorm, I didn’t care if he heeled or not. In fact, along our walk through the early morning darkness and whiteout of the storm, I encouraged him like Sgt. Preston of the Mounted.
“On Jazz!” I called out to him. “Away you go!”
In the storm, I cast the obedience to the wind because the sidewalks had blown in. There were no footprints for us to follow. I had no footing in the blowing snow. So, I chose to depend on Jazz’s instincts to guide us onto solid surfaces and quite frankly to help me keep my balance.
Over many winters and many snowstorms, I’ve learned some basic coping skills. For example, when I drive in winter, I always carry an emergency kit with matches and a candle in my glove compartment; a lit candle inside a marooned car throws a remarkable amount of heat in the confined space. It’s a good idea to store a chocolate bar or two in there too. So, in the aftermath of our latest blizzard, I thought I’d offer a lesson or two from storms past.
I remember, for example, during my university days (when I didn’t own a car), on Friday nights I routinely hitchhiked to a farmhouse east of Toronto for the weekend. This one Friday night, an eastbound ride on Hwy 401 dropped me at the ramp to the northbound Hwy 115/35. All I needed was another hitch eight or 10 miles to north of Pontypool, Ont., and I’d be at the farm safe and sound.
Except this night the weather along Lake Ontario was completely inhospitable – snow accumulating, wind whipping and temperature plummeting. Nobody was on the road, except the occasional transport. Miraculously, one stopped in the tunnel under 401 and picked me up. “I can’t thank you enough,” I told the driver.
“You can thank me by never pulling this stunt again,” he said. And he proceeded to tear a strip off me for hitching in such horrible weather. He claimed he was the only semi on the road for miles and if he hadn’t happened along, they’d probably have found me frozen to death in a snowdrift the next morning. Lesson learned. (In fact, I’d recommend nobody hitchhike in winter or ever.)
In the 1970s, I worked at a Saskatoon radio station, but commuted back and forth from the countryside to work. One February night driving home to my in-laws’ farmhouse west of Saskatoon, I turned off the highway and encountered snowdrifts too deep for my 1967 Dodge Valiant to penetrate. It was 3 a.m. and I was stuck in a snow bank, I thought, miles from anybody. (There were no cell phones then.)
“Never abandon your car in a snowstorm!” all of my experienced Prairie friends had told me. And yet that’s exactly what I did to try to get help. I walked about a mile in shoes and a flimsy coat, managed to reach a farmhouse, and called my brother-in-law Bill Doig to retrieve me. He roared down the grid road in his Dodge truck and pulled me out. “Don’t ever do that again!” he scolded me.
That’s when I started practising good winter driving habits – packing a parka, proper boots, emergency supplies (including the matches and candle).
One last thought about dogs and winter. Many years ago, when I wrote music features for Toronto pop music magazines, I interviewed singer/songwriter Corey Wells in California. Some may remember him from the late 1960s, when he teamed up with Danny Hutton and Chuck Negron to form the rock band Three Dog Night.
Some will remember hits such as Joy to the World, Never Been to Spain and Mama Told Me Not to Come. Anyway, I asked Wells about the origin of the band’s name. When Aboriginal people in Australia bedded down on cold nights, Wells told me, some slept on the ground keeping a dingo (dog) close by for body heat. On colder nights, they slept next to two dogs. But for sure, a freezing cold night was a “three dog night.”
Apocryphal perhaps, but I’m sure canine survival instincts are pretty reliable. In any case, I’ve decided to let my pal Jazz pull me at will through any and all snowstorms. In an emergency, dog obedience rules be damned.
Sounds to me like we’re damned lucky to have had you around so long! Take care of yourself big brother, and maybe try not to be too much like our dad, who didn’t like to listen to others’ advice either!