Early morning walks with Rona are easy. OH is out with her by about 7:30 and he even lets her off the lead towards the end of the walk so that she can have a good long run across our neighbouring farmer’s field.
Evenings are an issue. We feed her about 6pm and then she wants to go out for her evening poo. (Especially as in cooler weather she would normally have had a walk along the canal tow path in the afternoon.) I’m managing to keep her in until about 8:30pm but it’s still really too hot. We’re lucky in that we have a park in town with large trees, so she and I go from tree shadow to tree shadow.
She does get a bit stir crazy with all of this. She’s a young dog, with a huge amount of energy and these walks are really not long enough or energetic enough for her.
There are so many topics I know next-to-nothing about, and dogs is one of them but I’d be tempted to ask your new friend Mr GPT about games to exercise a dog of her breed, and try to do as much of it as possible as you are doing, on grass and under trees.
(I watched a video about the best games for border collies, games which would engage their herding instincts, and a similar one for retrievers: I imagine you might find something similar for Rona, whose race I’ve forgotten.)
Jules is an old dog so I assume that, with a heavy black coat, frequently shed to allow the grey through, he has enough nous to know when to be in, and when to be out, of the sun. Fortunately he has a nice shady west facing terrasse for his cooling periods.
The walk in the first part of the day seems to affect him less than it does me but later I insist we go up and down in the shade of all the trees.
We won’t take Bob out after lunch here at the moment. Too hot. But we do play games with him indoors ( his favorite is find the sausage). And then he goes put into the garden around 22.30h.
I notice that the sheep have still not been sheared but they are sensible enough to know when to wander slowly outside and when to stay inside in the cool of the huge, old stone barn.
I saw them out at around 7am this morning and last night at around 9pm and, like you, they also have a lovely shady area under the trees as well and a shallow watersource.
I reckon your dog has at least as much common sense as our local sheep
He does like the sun though and I give him a meaning look if I see him out of the shade too long. As for me, I’ve completed 84 metres today, I wish I could share it with him but he is not interested in water except to drink it. If he was I would make a way somehow for him to get in and out.
Funny thing happened this morning, I have a really good floating solar powered digital pond thermometre and yesterday it showed 17c before I went in. I splash about a bit at first while standing waist deep to make sure of accustomising the body (first law of wild swimming) and noticed it had gone up to 18, then a minute later 19. Now I know I am hot stuff but that is ridiculous, it could be the fact that moving it a bit makes the difference, but 2 degrees, and then back to 18 before finally settling for 17 again?
Off to the kine now, and he will be staying here in this hot weather, even with all windows down the heat in the car would be a killer.
Getting back to the topic, I sympathise greatly @SuePJ, I have 2 huskies in exactly the same situation. One is currently so hairy he’s the equivalent of wearing 2 thick winter coats in a heatwave (however much brushing I do) so there’s absolutely no way he can exert himself in these temperatures however much he may want to. Like you i just stick to early mornings and being 9 now he (thankfully) knows that when I put on the ‘I mean business’ voice and take him into my paddock, he’s to mean business pretty quick smartish as we won’t be aimlessly wandering around for an hour until he decides to do it. But it is a difficult situation trying to at least give them some enrichment so they don’t get disruptive or anxious while keeping them safe from the heat.
It’s a lot easier in the countryside - even the local village you notice the stone and concrete and the temps feel way higher.
Lucky there’s a completely shaded chemin - with a muddy stream (yippee..) next to the house although it’s only a 15 minute round trip. When it’s this hot we’ll go out at 8pm and do the loop round the back of the village which is largely shaded - and he jumps in the river at the end (washing off the remaining mud).
My little one just refuses to do anything but sleep until it’s cooler so she’s easy
Just a teeny, tiny treat. It doesn’t take much to get him interested.
(The tiles have become the bane of our life. We love them, but they are late 19th/early 20th cement tiles so totally impermeable and a major issue with the rising damp. Our Main Man thinks they’re a connerie (like much of the previous work in our house) and wants to dig them up. However the floor will be allowed to stay if we remove all the cement from outside of house, take all the walls around the floor back to stone, and install a VMC.).
OH and Tommy are going out not long after 6am, when it’s cool.
Late afternoon or early evening, once the sun is off our balcony/terrasse, it’s big enough for energetic ball games and Tommy loves that. If he’s still interested later, then there’s an evening walk when it’s cooled down again.
Tommy is eating less than he does in colder weather, so he isn’t putting weight on at the moment, but I think he would rather be exercising more. He seems to know when it’s too hot though.
He is so sweet. Rona has no such subtlety! The box would be in pieces in seconds.
She’s hardly moved all day today, once the morning walk was out the way.
In fact that’s been the same for us. I went back to bed, still feeling a bit queasy from yesterday, and OH has been dozing on the bed all the afternoon listening to the radio. What’s with “comedy” and women’s squeaky voices?
I’ll walk Rona very late in the park, assuming I can find a parking space. The locals are using a big “abri” for what I think is ceroc - mainly to early 60s music, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. Lovely to hear “Runaway”, Chubby Checker and the like drifting across the park lawns.
The sheep in the two fields bordering our house don’t need to be sheared, they moult. I didn’t realise until last year when I noticed large clumps of wool falling off them. Never knew you could have sheep that moulted but then again they must have originally I suppose.
Yes, rubbing against trees/rocks etc.. would make the wool gradually drop away.
However, our sheep are sheared professionally and the entire fleeces are sold. It is fascinating to watch and is an important source of income for the owner of the flock.
Besides the impact on dogs, the heatwave also threatens the swallow chicks who have just been born in our garage. Their nest, to the left of the light, is right up against the fibrociment roof, that gets baking hot.To counter this,my wife has rigged up a fan to cool the air around the nest, and is regularly pouring well water onto the top of the roof. Prior to this, the 3 chicks were trying to get out of their nest (at 2 days old!) seemingly driven by the need to escape the heat. Post the fan and water treatment, they’ve stopped trying to escape. We’ll do this until the heatwave passes..
A dilemma @SuePJ! Your young dog has energy to burn off that our two 14 year olds do not. All I can recommend is a good hour long walk in the early morning cool. If you have a secure garden the water hose game with a dog is fun. Would taking a daily car trip to higher climes be possible? The mountain areas have lovely walks but please watch out for those dreadful caterpillars.
but I’d be tempted to ask your new friend Mr GPT about games to exercise a dog of her breed, and try to do as much of it as possible as you are doing, on grass and under trees.
Another favorite is chase egg box on nice cool floor
