Dog PTSD

Dogs love snow. My dog loved snow. She ran and jumped and stuck her nose under the snow to make little trails. She played out there with us, threw her face up to catch snow we flung around, and chased Peanut in the yard. She loved snow! That is, she loved snow until she became snow traumatized. I think she has PTSD. When we had that crazy 2 foot snow here several weeks ago, she lost all of her dogness in snow. She ran out and promptly sank into the snow past her chest, turned around and waited at the back door. She must have held her bodily functions in for days. She'd walk out, see it was still white and turn right around. Honey even shoveled a little path for her, and led her out there on her leash to prove it was OK. She finally used the bathroom, but only in the confines of the little path.

So that snow has finally melted, and all has been back to normal (well normal for a loony rescue dog with some autistic tendencies). This morning, a light snow was falling and our family (OK, not Honey) was getting excited to make snow angels and run outside. Peanut has been talking about wearing her "new pink snow pants today! and my scarf! and my hat! and my new pink jacket!" and I have some new snow boots I'd like to take for a spin. Around lunch, we let the dog out in the new snow. It's about 2" or so deep, and really fluffy - perfect dog snow. She walked outside, stepped off the porch, turned around and came back to the door. She sat there shaking like a leaf until we let her back inside. Come to think of it, she was watching the snow fall out the window this morning before we had even a dusting and had a really worried expression. It looks like we will need to have an intervention this afternoon if we want her to pee outside.

Oy this dog. She is really sweet and gentle and is so patient with the poking and prodding she gets from the kids, but man she is a piece of work!