Yesterday on our evening walk, Murph and I ran into his gal pals Sophie and Lady. Sophie is a white shepherd/husky mix and Lady is a beagle. (We’ve written about them before in articles such as Murphy’s Fan Club, Tabby’s a One Cat Kind of Dog Lover, and The Fox in the Woods: A Lesson in Rabies.)
Last night it was a bit warm. Like mid-70s. Most of the time Sophie’s a high energy dog who loves to run and wrestle with her pals. She gets very mellow, however, when the temps start creeping up past 70. So while she was happy to be walking with her best bud Lady and was tickled when Murph and I came along and joined them, she wasn’t up for much horse play.
As we walked up the hill to turn the corner to do the loop we do, her pace slowed way down. And when we came to a nice shady spot of grass on one of the lawns, she did her trademark flop-down/I’m not budging another inch/I need a break maneuver.
Sophie usually loves her walks. Looks forward to them. (She gets about five a day. Murphy envies all her outside time!) But that five o’clock walk in spring and summer aren’t as welcome.
Nila, Sophie’s loving mom, said, “I need to find a part-time home for her in Alaska from like April to the end of September.”
A dog swap?
Even before she suggested this might make a good article for me to write about, my wheels were already turning.
The first thing that came to mind was a pet website called PetPop.com. From an article I wrote about them, I knew they had a Pet Sitting Exchange on their site. (You can find it under the Pet Stuff tab.) It’s for people who want to swap pet sitting duties with each other.
I don’t know if anyone else would be interested in a pet swap of the nature Nila was joking about, but I do know this:
If you live in Alaska and have a dog who would enjoy hotter summer weather than you get your way, and you would like to take a dog who would enjoy your more pleasant summer temps, I can hook you up! I can attest that Nila is an excellent dog mom and will give nothing except quality TLC to your pooch in return for giving her Sophie a break from what must feel like sweltering heat and humidity to her. (Come August it’ll feel that way to us people, too. But for now us humans are enjoying defrosting after a long, cold winter.)