Oh you lucky Pacific Northwesters, I'm thoroughly envious! I absolutely love having plenty of snow. Winter is SUPPOSED to be my well-earned break from doing doggie-laundry, as in loads of towels. So far this "winter" has included only two 2-day stretches of frozen ground and one 2" snowfall. The rest of the time even if it didn't rain there was great humidity which caused heavy enough dew to result in muddy feet (not heavily muddy, but still enough to dirty up a lot of towels). Tomorrow will be another day of cold enough to keep the snow, then it's forecase to warm up and rain, darn it all.

To explain: Most days I take the pack-let (our 3 dogs plus sometimes another 1 or 2 of friends) for a 1.75 hour or longer trek through woodland and meadow trails, usually including some time at the creek--they all have webbed feet and love water play even in colder weather. Those wet dogs somehow always pick up a LOT of dirt on the way back to the dogmobile, which dirt of course turns to mud on contact. Two of ours have "sticky" hair i.e. mud (and everything else) sticks to it in a big way. The eldest has fur that sheds a lot of mud and other delights, but nothing sheds the black humus-y muck found at the bottom of the wooded ravines where we walk. Our blond doodles come out of there looking like black-faced (and black-footed) sheep. And both the friends' dogs also have the "sticky" type of hair that collects mud.

That's a LOT of daily dog hosing when it's warm enough to do so, or doggy-dipping when it's cold enough to require using lightly warmed water in buckets from indoors. Either way I use a lot doggy drying towels after our walks.

You can count for yourself how many clean feet, bellies, bums and chins it means to me when we get and keep good snow cover. Plus, the dogs LOVE the stuff, becoming like puppies again every time there is fresh fall.

[Sigh.] Lucky you. If you don't have to drive far in it.