My toes. Nice and cool.

You know how I love to “frog dog” with my toes splayed out the back like this.

Seeing my feet reminds me of what happened in front of my Godmother’s house not too long ago. A man and woman were talking. He had a dog on a leash. The three of them were standing on the hot sidewalk. The dog became restless after a while but the man jerked the leash every time the dog moved back and forth on the sidewalk.

Godmother Carol watched from inside her air conditioned house. It was hot outside. Very hot. The sidewalk was hot. Now, you KNOW the dog was hot, too. So were his feet. If you knew my Godmother, you’d know what happened next.

She took off out of the house, walked up to that man and said, “Excuse me, please take off your shoes.” The man just looked at her.  So, she said it again, “Please take off your shoes.” When he must have been thinking she was from Mars, she explained that the dog needed to get out of the sun and off of the hot sidewalk.  Clearly, she must have thought, he was guilty of animal cruelty.

The woman said, “I can feel the heat through the soles of my sandals.”

Can you imagine how hot that dog’s feet were?

So, the moral of this little story is this: if YOU can stand on a hot sidewalk and feel that it’s hot enough to fry an egg, DON’T walk your dog on it.

I have the best Godmother.

What You Learned Today:

• Some people have no concept of anything or anyone but themselves.
• Dogs are dogs, true, but dogs are people, too. (Really, we are. We just wear fur coats. All the time.)
• Think before you act. “Will what I’m doing hurt my dog? Is it OK to do this with my dog? Is it too hot or cold for my dog?” You know, things like that. Try it sometime. Just ask yourself if it’s too ______ for your dog. Could your action cause harm?
• OK, this might apply to cats, too.