June 26, 2010

White Dog and Quinn were bored and tired of the humid heat. Poor Quinn was really dragging and amazed his sister when he walked away leaving his breakfast untouched. Michael was concerned about how "droopy" The Other White Dog was and wanted us to take him to the vet. He worriedly agreed that we would wait a bit; if Quinn went all day without eating then we would consider his request. White Dog huffed, "As if," and tried to explain to Michael that pups and ABQ summers were not always a good combination and when you are uncomfortable you just don't want to eat.

Michael pondered her argument and then looked up. "Maybe we should take you and Quinn to get summer haircuts and get rid of all that hot fur," he suggested. White Dog ran over and hopped up on my chair. Steve tried to help Michael make sense of the fact that White Dog and TOWD's double coats actually protected them from the summer sun and kept them cooler.

White Dog suggested an experiment. We put one ice cube on the counter sitting alone. We put another cube on the other side of the counter but wrapped this one with the kitchen towel that we had folded into several layers. "The first," Professor White Dog lectured, "is just skin...see it is already hot enough to melt. The covered one is like Quinn's and my fur coated skin. Let's come back in a while and see what happens." A half hour later, we discovered the plain cube was now a puddle but the covered one, though smaller, still looked like ice. "I would have thought the one under the towel would have melted faster," said a surprised Michael. "But the towel trapped in the cool and kept out the heat. So no haircuts for us White Dogs...agreed?" White Dog woofed.