hot days in autumn

It has been hot the last few days, so we're walking early in the morning. The ground at Rosanna Parklands is dry and dusty. You can see in this photo that only the run-off from the doggy drinking bowl enables some grass to grow in one especially dry patch of soil.

Penny is a fussy drinker. Here we are trying to convince her she needs water. Look, we've emptied out the dirty old water and it's nice and fresh now.

No thanks. I don't do public drinking bowls.

Oh okay, if you insist. I'll drink from the running tap.

dog walking in every kind of weather

Living with a dog is a great way to get in touch with nature. We've found that we have a greater interest in the weather forecasts since Penny came to live with us.

In winter, we need to know whether there's going to be a break in the rain so we can head out and not come home soaked.

But it's in summer that we really keep and eye on the forecasts. If it's going to be a stinker of a hot day, which has been the case lately, we need to walk and be home before about 8a m. It was about 30º C this morning by that time. That's about 80º Fahrenheit.

Lately we've been getting less exercise ourselves, because if we leave it a bit late to walk, we simply take Penny to the river. She swims while we sit around.

hot weather games for dogs

The disturbingly hot weather continues, and we've had to start our summer activities in the house, even though it's supposed to be spring. (Let's hope we get back to normal weather soon.)

One of our favorites is 'hide the food'. Penny sits and I put a piece of food near her nose so she knows what she's looking for. Then she 'waits' while I hide the food at the other end of the house, making sure to choose places that offer her a challenge - for instance, up high, so she has to stretch to find it, or behind half-open doors so she has to nudge them open.

Another game is what I call 'chasey', where I chase her around the house to get the tennis ball from her, then throw it (gently, lol) for her to fetch. She gets it and runs away from me. The fun part is that if I don't chase her, if in fact I run away from her, she pursues me and then I'll do a sudden about turn and leap on her to grab it.

There's one important rule. The green mat is 'barley'. What that means to us is that if Penny sits on her mat, there's a truce and we can't demand the ball from her or try to grab it.



I think there are a couple of advantages to the 'barley' rule. Firstly, it gives Penny a choice about how long to continue the game. But, more importantly, she can usually be tricked into leaping on to the barley-mat and we can have a rest.

We've always used 'barley' in our family to signify a truce from a boisterous game, and I got to wondering where the word comes from. I've found that it's not used in many countries and is a childhood term.

The references I browsed say it's not used by adults, but I think adults who live with dogs are in touch with their 'inner child', lol. After all, I'd never have thought I'd be racing around the house playing games when I reached this age!

dogs keeping cool on a hot day

Scruffy visited yesterday. He had been clipped and looked great, in my opinion, though his human thinks he looks better with a long coat. (I've posted about his visits previously here and here.)



We're experiencing strangely hot weather for Spring (12 degrees above average!) so the dogs took it easy.