Long, Hot Weekend, Day 2

When it's too hot outside, you cope by doing more things inside. Here's Maya and Coco playing.

Mercedes kept trying to police the
situation, but it was not necessary.

TJ tried to engage with Maya while she was
playing with Coco. Maya ran him off.

I got the three girls out for a morning walk. That seems be our usual thing these days. They can handle the heat for the short two miles that we go, and they all walk well together.

Mercedes and Coco, Maya isn't in the picture
because she's always right at my heel.

Coco's footprints in fresh mud from
yesterday's downpours.

Our group photo effort for the day.

When I got back home from the walk, Coco was still ready for more although the other two girls seemed content with what we had done. I left Maya and Mercedes at home and went back out with Coco and Harvey. I used two leashes on Harvey, one on a slip collar and one on his harness. He really doesn't pull, but we did have a discussion about his walking back and forth and bumping into me. I got him on my left side and insisted that he stay there and then we got along pretty well.

We hadn't gone a mile yet when I decided to pull over and rest in some shade. Harvey liked that idea. In fact he liked it so much that he didn't want to get up and continue. I decided we'd cut the walk short and head back, taking advantage of all the available shade on the return. But when we got to the next shady place he plopped down again, unwilling to move. I finally got him out of the ditch and across the road under some trees and placed an SOS call to Clay to come pick us up.

He's not really acclimated to the heat and he's a very large dog, I was afraid that he was overheating and was trying to tell me so. Maybe he was just playing me, because when a car passed with a dog inside who barked, he jumped right up and seemed fine. But still, I didn't want to take the chance. He's far more dog than I could carry. We just waited in the shade for a few minutes until Clay arrived and then went home, and inside, for the rest of the afternoon.

Coco is such a pretty little girl.