Habit is an interesting phenomenon, practised by humans but also by others within the animal kingdom. Animals like our Jackie and Jillie who have habits of their very own, some of which impinge on ours just as some of our habits instruct them. They are excellent time-keepers, for example. Around ten every evening Jackie gets restless and wants to go out to the backyard. He figures that this will trigger our willingness to go up to bed. It never does; we won't do that for another hour, or most frequently two more hours.

 
In the morning Jillie gets restless just before eight, and thinks we should be up and getting breakfast for her and her brother, and she gets very insistent about her obligation to remind us of our sacred duty to do just that. In the early evening, at six on the dot, they both rouse themselves to stand stolidly, reproachfully before me with the unspoken yet very obvious message not requiring vocalization that it's dinner time for them.

When they've finished their 'first course' at dinnertime, consisting of their kibble topped with chicken and chicken soup to moisten the kibble, they're impatient for the next course. While this is being prepared Jillie turns dizzy circles of anticipation, and sometimes Jackie joins her.That's the fresh vegetable salad they get every evening. It starts out with frozen cauliflower zapped lightly in t he microwave, then bell pepper, snap peas, cucumber and tomatoes cut into little pieces mixed in with the cauliflower. If I'm not quick enough Jackie gets quite upset and barks out his orders for me to 'move it!'.

On our return from our daily spin through the forest trails in our nearby ravine, they burst through the house in a mad run-about, an excess of joyfulness. And then they get down to the serious business of dogging me in the kitchen, reminding me that I haven't yet given them their afternoon treat, and that's raw, cut-up cauliflower in their little dishes. They leap with excitement awaiting those dish-deposits before them and dive straight in.

So they know their times-of-day, clever aren't they? And then there's the issue of knowing which day of the week it happens to be. They know that on Mondays and Fridays we have cereal for breakfast, and that means they can look forward to little bowls of cereal and milk of their own after they've had their kibble. Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays my husband has soft-boiled eggs at breakfast, and those are the days they know they'll be getting an egg split between them as a treat; hard-boiled or scrambled.

That leaves the weekend, which is their favourite for on Saturdays they can smell bacon and eggs on the stove and they prance around anxiously awaiting their portions in their little dishes. But their favourite of all their favourites is Sunday, for that's the day we have either French toast and sausages or pancakes and sausages. Today it was banana pancakes served with sausages; they turn head-over-heels for Sunday treat.

Another treat of somewhat dubious quality was in store for today; a shortened daylit-Sunday. Heavily overcast all day, but by half-past two there was no longer any pretense at daylight, and we knew that snow, finally, was on the way. When we emerged from the house a tad after three, light snow had begun falling on a 0C day, and the wind had come up notably.

For the duration of our ramble through the woods snow fell and gradually its white aspect covered everything. This may turn out to be a nice snowstorm; rumours of 20 centimetres in the forecast, and welcome. Jackie and Jillie's warm little paws made impressions on the slowly-accumulating snow as we marched through the trails, and the atmosphere kept getting progressively darker, until by the time we emerged, hauling ourselves back up to street level, it was completely dark. We'd better get used to it.