Our weather seems to be in a perpetual state of uncertainty. Bouncing from extreme cold temperatures to milder ones within the space of a day. We've had fewer snow events, but spates of frigid weather, alternating with milder temperatures and rain.

Yesterday, in the late afternoon the temperature rose to minus-1 C, and snow flurries turned to big fat water drops. Not enough to make any inroads in melting the accumulated snow, but odd. We haven't taken our maddening little imps out for a walk since last week. Not that they're missing out on exercise; ripping through the house gives them plenty of that. Enough so that they turn swiftly from raging hellfire to sweetly behaved, tired little puppies who take themselves into their playpen, cuddle up together in the bed, and sleep off their exhaustion. 

So because of the opportunity open to us with the milder day we decided it was time to take them out again to accustom them to collar, leash, jacket and halter. Let alone the environment of a forested ravine. They aren't keen on wearing collars. We don't ordinarily use collars at home with our little companions. Jack and Jill have become adept at swivelling their skinny little necks sufficiently to allow them to capture the collar in their strong little jaws. These are the smallest collars we could find, used at their narrowest; how they manage to do that is beyond us, but they do.

The collars present as a challenge they're prepared to chew to pieces, if they could, but they can't. And then there's their little winter jackets over which the halters are worn; the halters help guide them without having to do so by attaching the lead to the collar and so straining their little necks. The lead can pull at their back and chest without harm. Attaching the leash presents as another indignity to their sense of autonomy; they want to go where they want to head, not where we presume to take them.

So, it's a stop-and-go affair, at times they're in perfect balance with our need to guide them forward, and at other times they balk and pull back, so we speak volumes of enticements and eventually they come around. It isn't yet one of t heir favourite activities, to say the least. We're unreasonable, they feel, in our insistence that they do what we want, rather than what they want. A simple misunderstanding that will clarify itself and which they will become reconciled to as the days wear on.