Mud!

Lately I've been trying to decide whether I hate mud or ice more. Ice is really hard to fall on and probably breaks more hips than mud, but jeez, mud is so .... muddy!

After a good dump of snow on the 18th of December, the resulting slush seemed to hang around for ages. We didn't have a white Christmas here but there was enough white stuff on the ground for the kids to go sledging on Boxing day. Shorty after that, the temp rose above freezing and it melted, leaving behind thick, sticky, brown mud.

The dogs love it but my car and carpet are suffering hugely.

I bought a paw plunger at the last conference I went to but tbh we haven't really got on with it. The dogs don't like the feeling of it and are reluctant to put their feet in it which leads to a struggle. So I tend to just keep a (filthy) towel in the car- when it starts making more of a mess than it removes, I replace it.

My other weapon against mud is a properly fitting dog coat. By properly fitting, I mean it needs to go down over the dogs bottom and fit over his sides. For the lurcher, the coat offers warmth as she's a naturally skinny dog, but our old boy loves to roll in anything muddy or smelly and it is 100x easier to wash the coat than the entire dog. Especially since he has trouble getting in the bath since his stroke last year, and he's really a bit heavy for me to lift- if he needs washing, then I have to take him into the garden and hose the poor old boy down. It's rather cold for both of us.

I have to say this is the time of the year that I least like having a dog, and tend to be rather unadventurous in my walking habits.

I stick to parks with proper paths and try to stay off the grass but of course, as far as the dogs are concerned, all the good smells are in the fields and hedges, so the car ride home is always a muddy one.