Red-winged Blackbirds

Got in the first walk of the year. We took a meandering route from one brown patch of ground to the next, sometimes trudging through a couple feet of snow or a vernal pond, but we made it back to Gorgeous Gorge. The water was high but there was a layer of ice just beneath it and snowbanks along the edges. I stood watching bits of leaves, caught in the wind, skitter across it's surface. Indy was nose to the ground checking out the west side of the pond when she decided to step out on the ice. "This," I thought, "is not going to end well." Indy doesn't know the command, "Stop, go back" so about all I could do was watch and hope some innate doggy sense would keep her on ice that would hold her weight. Around the middle of the pond she abruptly turned and came toward where I stood on the dam. Then the ice gave way. She dog paddled through the ice slush until she could just catch the snow at the edge of the dam w/ her front claws. However, she was in deep water there and unable to pull herself out. She gave a whimper. I put down my camera case and pulled out her leash. I carefully slid down the dam embankment and leaned over enough to clip the leash onto her collar. By pulling on that and catching her front leg at the elbow, she had enough purchase to make it out of the water. I didn't let go of the leash. There was now the problem of how I would get out of the three feet of snow/water I was standing in and back up the embankment. I thought having a dog pulling at the other end of a leash certainly wouldn't hurt that effort. So, I was wrong. Everything did end well.