Sure Signs that Spring is Right Around the Corner

What says "Spring is here" to you? Is it blue skies overhead? How about flowers peaking out from the ground? I know, the "crack of the bat" and the "thud of catcher's mitts" that comes with baseball's "Spring Training" season in both Arizona and Florida. Well, these of course are some of the more obvious and traditional signs of Spring, but I thought it might be fun to take a look at some of the not-so-obvious to the naked eye hints as well.

My absolute favorite has to be the "dogs head out of the car window or moon roof" catching the fresh clean breezes of Spring at varying speeds on roadways. It is especially comical at the higher rates of speed as the canine's face becomes a distorted combination of a smile at their good fortune of having their head out the window, and the rippling effect that speed has on facial features, much like an astronaut at liftoff. There must be something about all those smells available to the canine nose while dangling head, tongue and ears out and above windows that is universal to all breeds, shapes and sizes as I have never met a dog yet that doesn't jump at this fresh air and sunshine gold mine.

Now along with your pooch being able to now take in all these new scents after a long, cold gray winter inside, is another sure sign that "Spring has Sprung", and that is the backyard full of all that "doggie waste" that also has accumulated over the long, cold, winter inside as well. This first order of business of Sp[ring, no matter how many years you have owned a dog, is usually not remembered until you have, without thought of course, taken to the yard for something else and found yourself trapped in a mine filed of "doggie doo". The next step of course is to yell to someone, anyone, in the house to fetch you a 40 gallon trash bag, and your trusty "pooper scooper" so that you may dig you way out . The only saving grace of this less than envious task is the fact that if you have caught this early enough in Spring, in other words before the rains have hit, the "presents" are usually still frozen and much easier to scoop up than they will be in a few months when summer heat bakes them into something soft and gooey.