Activity is cabin fever antidote for both man and beast

Psychologists say it’s a great idea to have a hobby to carry you through the long winter months. Long nights coupled with brief and infrequent moments of sunshine during the daylight hours can begin to wear on even the most stoic and stable of us at this time of year. It makes easy sense that any distraction from endlessly gray days can work to lift spirits and make time a little quicker.

While man may see the challenge before him and work to address it by picking up a book, busting open a 1,000-piece jigsaw puzzle or whittling a duck decoy beside the fire, such choices are beyond reach for man’s best friend. It’s tough to turn pages with a paw pad and even more difficult to pick up a puzzle piece or grip a chisel handle without an opposable thumb.

Our canine friends, therefore, are left to look at us longingly and wonder why we aren’t doing something to help ease their own winter boredom.

If you are wired like my wife, who is convinced our mutt Frank is constantly speaking to her through every tail drop, eye droop and brow wrinkle, you simply cannot rest until your dog is happy. Frank has learned to play this hand like a Vegas card shark. He’ll drag himself to the foot of Kristin’s art table and flop down like a sack of sand and bones to stare at her with such mournful melancholy you’d think his drooping jowls were going to melt right into the floor.

“Oh, look at Frank,” she’ll say, followed by her tea-leaf reading of his current emotional state. Her suppositions run the gamut from “He must be hungry” to “He wants me to take him on a hike in the woods.”

Regardless of the dog’s true intent, he knows for certain pouting on the floor beneath Kristin’s feet will always elicit action of some sort. In essence Frank’s wintertime hobby is getting his mistress to suggest fun and rewarding activities for him. A toddler should be so lucky.

Granted, it doesn’t take a whole lot to satisfy the dog for a good spell. Throw the stuffed squirrel in the yard with him for five minutes, and he’s good for an hour or two. Take him around the block, and he might leave you be for the afternoon. A trip to the woods will buy an entire evening of doggy satisfaction. He’s easy to please, just as long as you stop everything you’re doing and focus all of your attention on his plight.

As for me, I’m largely immune to Frank’s sad-sack “hounding.” I tell him to “go lie down,” and he’ll sulk off into the next room and think about it for a spell. Then, moments later, he’ll invariably return to my feet with his favorite beef femur or deer antler to noisily chaw until I take him out to play, walk him around the block or take him to run in the woods for a couple of hours.

I know what you’re thinking here, but I assure you I’m no patsy like the lady of the house. Frank is there to remind me to get myself up and out and attend to my own wintertime hobbies, lest I fall into bluesy despair. I’m merely taking him along for the ride.

Kristin and John Lorson would love to hear from you. Write Drawing Laughter, P.O. Box 170, Fredericksburg, OH 44627, or email John at jlorson@alonovus.com.