This morning was a crisp 45 degrees 
on my front porch. Victoria, a Yorkie,
dislikes weather that isn’t full sun with 
a balmy 75-degree temperature. As she 
ran down the porch steps, her back was 
bowed like a cat in extreme displeasure
at the chill. Her necessary business was 
accomplished with unusual speed.

She bounded back up the stairs to get 
inside close to a heat vent in hopes hot air
would fluff her coat with lovely warmth.
This is when we had our sweater “discussion.”

Victoria finds any foreign object that touches
her to be an unwelcome intrusion. This aversion
includes; collars, leashes, harness-type devices, 
any dog costume, coats, and her sweater. She finds
the very idea of bandanas, a degrading insult to dogs
in general, her particularly.

In our “discussion” of sweater weather, I picked
her up, pulled the garment over her head, slipped
her front paws into the right holes so quickly that
she made no protest. Outside we went again. 

She ran furiously for a few minutes. Then, a roll
in dirt followed, in hopes of dislodging the foreign 
object. On her back with her paws pedaling madly,
she careened from side to side. She gave it her best 
effort, but the sweater remained intact.

Resigned, she trotted off to sniff our mailbox,
a doggy community center. Messages are left 
from passing canines in pee puddles around the 
brick base. After checking her mail, she patrolled 
her territory, checked her boundaries for intruders.
A thorough sniff session revealed information about
wildings, a vagabond cat who torments her, squirrels,
and anything dead or rotten.

Convinced all her ducks were in a row, 
she trotted back up the porch steps to enjoy
her mid-morning snack and snooze. She oozed
confidence that her human would remove
that offensive sweater.