Our two little dogs wear their collars only when they're not home. When they're at home the collars come off and stay off. When Jackie was a puppy the collar and its tags would drive him to distraction. He gnawed through a number of collars and harnesses, as a deliberate act of vengeance; he hated them. He has since learned to tolerate them, though he will still try to chew the tags because they irritate him.

Jillie couldn't care less. On or off, she ignores the collars. That is, until she knows it's time for us to set out on our daily ramble in the woods. She loves trotting through the woodland trails, but for some reason that speaks to her propensity to challenge authority, she tries to avoid us when it's time to put on collar and harness, and now that it's winter, her jacket as well, meant to protect her little body from icy wind and cold temperature.

Jackie never runs away from being dressed for the out-of-doors, though he isn't fond of being clothed. Once done, however, their spirit of cooperation kicks in and they're anxious to get going. Once dressed, both have a habit of pawing any handy rug vigorously as though to demonstrate just how prepared they are for the day's adventure.

There is a time, though when they present themselves eagerly for their collars to be affixed. It's when they sense we're about the leave the house and they want to accompany us. That sense of theirs is unerring. Long before we make the actual moves to leave the house they know by some strange alchemy of canine divining that something's afoot. When we're at the door about to leave, telling them to guard the house and play with one another, and their collars haven't been put on they know they're being left and their behaviour is pitifully woebegone.

Even when they've been prepared with their collars on to accompany us their anxiety level is so high that they keep nudging us and leaping toward us to pick them up for deposit in the car and only then do they quiet down in the satisfaction of knowing they won't be left behind, at home. You'd think that since there are two siblings to give one another the comfort of knowing they're not alone, this kind of behaviour would be absent, but no.

Fully prepared to meet the -2C temperature yesterday, with a stiff wind under a heavily grey-clouded day they reacted with their  usual robust enthusiasm as soon as we reached the entrance to the ravine and began the descent into the forest. Jackie outdid himself in sporadic bursts of wild energy, running back and forth down the hill, back up again as though to remonstrate with us two slow-pokes. He did this throughout the course of our circuit yesterday.

It's true, the last week or so our progress along the ascents and descents have been much slower than usual. Not only because wearing cleats over boots slows us down, puncturing through the nascent snowpack, but because we've got to be alert to where the icy patches are. In some instances we can see them plainly because others before us have slid, revealing the presence of ice under the snow. We'd prefer to avoid such slides and rude encounters with the ground.

We have, in fact, over the years, experienced more than enough of them. Some where we were just able to blithely pick ourselves back up again, some which knocked the wind out of us in shock and in the process exacted a physical toll that took awhile to recover from. Some ended in unfortunate injury and then recovery time was far more lengthy. Best avoided. While Jackie and Jillie also do their share of slipping on the ice, they haven't far to stumble and fall, since their physical acquaintance with the forest floor is far more intimate in height than our own.

We've been meeting fewer people out on the trails as the days nudge closer to Christmas. The tranquility and peace we experience viewing the beauty of the forest with its as-yet-light covering of snow on trees and trails is unfortunately absent from the lives of stressed-out gift-shoppers and we feel for them. They will return once the holidays are over to re-acquaint themselves with the serenity of the woods and the pleasure to be had in striding the trails, just as we do.