Icipooch (rhymes with “icicle”)

It has been soooo cold here. It’s a good thing that I’ve put on that extra blubber sweater this holiday season because when Mom took me to run this morning, it was literally freezing. Literally. Freezing. Thirty-two degrees. Freezing! I’m pretty sure that nowhere else in the world has ever been so cold. Nowhere. Ever.

I was excited when I saw Mom get dressed to run, but it took her so long to start the car and get all the frost off the windows with her credit card that by the time she’d finished I’d given up and gone back to bed. (Great business idea: credit cards specifically designed to scrape the ice off of car windows.* I can’t believe no one has thought of this before! I’m going to be rich!)

Then she drove me to the mountain trails, which are usually soft on my paws. But this morning the ground was as hard as concrete, and there was this white dust all over everything. I thought that maybe Mom would let me off leash since surely no one else would be dumb enough to run in these temperatures. To show her it was a good idea to set me free, I made sure to pull her extra hard on the frozen wooden bridges which were like ice… No, not “like” ice… I mean “covered in” ice. She didn’t set me free, though, and made me tow her all the way up the hill even though all the other runners, dogs and critters had obviously all frozen to death. We didn’t see another soul until almost an hour later when it was almost 10º warmer and we were almost back to the parking lot. We are definitely the bravest, toughest runners out there this winter. I defy you to send proof that there are tougher dogs or runners out there…

–Oscar the Icipooch (rhymes with “icicle”)

*patent pending