So I meet friends for dinner and, as always until it gets to be summer and too hot to do, the dogs accompany me for the ride. When I get to the restaurant, I carefully lower the windows slightly even though it’s still only about 35 degrees outside so that the car doesn’t get two warm inside for the dogs. I come out about 90 minutes later and both seem very comfortable. In fact, Blondie doesn’t even bother to get up from her comfortable position lying on the quilt in the back of the car.
We head home and are on the road about ten minutes when Blue, who is in the front passenger seat, starts to pant. Thinking I have the heat blowing too much for her, I lower it until frigid air is literally streaming out of the vents. She pants even harder. Drops of sweat hang from her tongue. I put the windows down so the cool breezes that come with a temperature that has now dropped below 32 degrees can waft through the car. She turns her head to the cool air and yet still continues her panting.
Now I’m worried. Is she sick? Having some sort of diabetic reaction? Running a high fever? But no. I look down at the instrument panel that separates the two front seats and realize that her paw has accidentally pushed the seat warming button on to the high position. As she sits with her head in frigid air, her butt is being heated to a comfy 110 degrees – or, so I assume, it feels to her. I turn the button off, the heat on her butt subsides and the panting stops.
All is well except for the frozen fingers I must now use to grip the equally frozen steering wheel that has been delightfully cooled to even lower than 32 degrees by the breeze blowing through the car.
Having a dog means never having a normal moment.