Halo beats the heat

You know it's hot when even a puppy doesn't want to play outside.

We've just been through a short heat wave here. All week, it's been hot and humid. Yesterday was 102 which put the heat index at about 110. Needless to say, every living thing was miserable -- including the cutest Fidelco puppy in the world, Halo.

It's been hot enough that my son finally pulled the dogs' pool out of the garage loft. We have one of those plastic kiddie pools for Harley, who loves to wade or lie in it during the summer. Halo went in it with Harley for the first time two nights ago and seemed to enjoy it, but in last night's heat she only wanted to drink from it! She wasn't interested in swimming, she just wanted back in the house where it was air conditioned! Harley spent a couple of minutes in the pool retrieving dive rings one by one; he hates having things in the pool that don't "belong" there. But even after getting the dive rings out of the pool and onto the deck, he wanted to go inside as well. I think I was the only one enjoying having my feet in the cool water! So we went indoors where we moved on to Halo's other favorite cooling techniques.

She has some pretty cute (?) habits for beating the heat. One of her favorites is playing with ice cubes. She will lick, crunch, throw, chase, and carry around ice cubes to cool off. Unfortunately, the automatic icemaker in my freezer is broken, so we're back to using the old fashioned plastic ice cube trays. Between Halo and the other two dogs, we use up an entire tray every evening. Cheap entertainment!

It's probably a good thing Halo eats ice cubes, because she certainly isn't getting her hydration from the water in the dog dishes. That's right -- she doesn't drink from the dog dishes. Not because she is picky. Not because I forget to fill them. It's because of her other favorite way to keep cool. You see, Halo likes to approach the most full water bowl in the kitchen, stick both front paws in the water, and splash the water out onto the floor so she can lie in it. When one bowl is empty, she moves on to the next...wet floor, wet puppy, wet feet for mommy.

The first couple of days that I had her, I left water in her bowl inside the crate during the day. when I would let her out to walk her midday and before going home, I was wondering if she just spilled her water bowl or had an accident in the crate. It only took a few evenings of seeing her escapades at home to realize that this is just her way of cooling off. Or maybe she is doing it to keep clean, though that would be kind of like letting the bathtub overflow and then rolling around on the bathroom floor. I'm guessing it's more about cooling off than keeping clean.

After talking to some of the other puppy raisers who are fostering Halo's brothers and sisters, it seems that the entire litter loves ice and does the same thing with their water bowls. Could it be genetic?

Regardless, it's pretty doggone smart.