Kaia and the simple joy of playing in the snow

Hey Hivepets community,

I don't know what it is with dogs and snow but they sure love it! Well, I guess the smaller ones or the ones without a thick fur to keep them warm may not agree, but so far all the dogs I had the chance to meet were crazy about the snow. And Kaia is no different. She never had a formal introduction on Hive, but you might already know her if you ever came across one of my daily Actifit posts. She's featured there pretty much every day, which makes sense, as she's obviously the main reason we usually walk so much. She will be 9 this summer but she's still a pup at heart. And when you add enough snow, now you can witness what I think pure joy looks like.

A few days ago, the sun was shining, we had a thin layer of fresh snow, and just enough time for a quick walk in the small forest nearby. Perfect combo! Again, if for a strange reason, you're interested in the details, you can check my Actifit report, but I'll focus here on Kaia of course.

After the usual deer and squirrels chasing, she started climbing and jumping over the many obstacles you can find in this small forest. It's probably just natural instinct for her, but I like to think Genepi, my previous dog (I will talk about him later), taught her that after she arrived in our home. He was an expert and surprisingly agile for a 110+ pounds German Shepherd Dog. In any case, watching Kaia having so much fun always brings a smile to my face. It's also pretty obvious that she completely forgot about that limping that bothered her for a few days.

After that short walk, we had espressos on the backyard deck. Kaia, always wanting to be the center of attention, joined of course.

But this is just too boring for a super energetic dog like Kaia! So, she decided to find ways to entertain herself. First, she found a simple wood stick. Kind of unusual actually, that's not her favorite. But fun nonetheless!

Like I expected, she then found something better. Not sure how, but somewhere under that snow, she found an old tennis ball. You can see from how it's completely destroyed that she already played with it in the past, a lot!

She realized it would be even more fun if she could chase it. So she started to come closer, but at first, she didn't want to drop the ball.

And finally she remembered: "If I drop the ball, somebody will throw it..."

And of course, we obliged. How could we resist this face?

A few times, with so much excitement, she lost the tennis ball in the snow, but that powerful nose of hers doesn't fail when it comes to finding things to play with.

She could have kept going for hours and she tried, relentlessly bringing back that ball for us to throw.

But we were running out of time, so after a few more throws, we finally had to tell a disappointed Kaia that was it for the day.

I don't want to spoil the good vibes of Kaia's happiness in the snow, but as much as it is always fun to watch her playing like that, this also brings a bit of nostalgia for me, almost bittersweet. There was a time when this kind of activity had almost become a daily routine. That's when Genepi's health started to deteriorate and we had to shorten our daily walks. Kaia needed much more exercise, so we would spend lots of time on the backyard deck throwing her tennis and soccer balls, while Genepi would lie at my feet, getting plenty of pets in between throws of course and watching her have fun. Genepi passed more than two years ago, but his memory is still very present with us, especially during these activities. Let's remember the great moments when he and Kaia used to play together.

Thanks for reading this far, hope you enjoyed Kaia's photos! I truly think her energy is contagious. Have a great day, and please give lots of pets to your animals from Kaia and me!

PS: all the photos were taken with my cell phone. No real editing but some of them were slightly enhanced with Snapseed.