I'm looking after a vacationing neighbour's older, somewhat overweight
lab and the weather's quite sunny & hot here in Central Ontario, 35C
w. the humidex. Though I totally despise summer weather here (I'm a
winter or fall person) I still have to walk the dog twice a day, espc.
in the morning so he can void after the movements of a walk (he won't
void otherwise, ie, putting him in the yard doesn't work). Previous
years I looked after the dog, he managed the heat pretty well, but
this year (his 12th) was quite different this time.

Before he left, the owner told me he had a type of strap watering dish
for the dog, but I looked all over his house and yard and couldn't
find it, so I sort of forgot about it. I later took the dog out for
his first walk, with a small water bottle on a loop around my neck for
my own drinking, and had the usual plastic bag for the dog's waste.
Halfway into the field, walking in a somewhat shaded shrubbery area,
the dog started to pant and drool wildly and sat down and wouldn't
budge.

Afraid of heat stroke for the dog, I improvised by pressing the
plastic shopping bag into one of the many divets in the ground near
him and filled it with some of the bottled water. The dog slurped it
up, and I repeated this until the bottle was empty. I could have kept
filling the bag up if I had more water, though he perked right up
after drinking all of the contents of the bottle. We made it home,
where I hosed him down with cool water, dried him with a towel, and
put him back into his air conditioned house. He seemed to recover
quite quickly, but I will never walk him again in this heat without a
bottle of water and the walks will be much shorter than the ones I
took him on last summer when I looked after him for the neighbours
again.

I've since looked on the web for various dog walk watering products,
but it occurred to me that many are limited by the size of the bottle
that comes with it. The bag I used was just a simple grocery bag, and
when he finished drinking from it I folded it up to use for his waste,
if needed. You could also carry 2 of these light bags, one for waste
and one for poured water. Of course, you still need to carry a bottle
of water, but that's a given now.

weft2 wrote:


Afraid of heat stroke for the dog, I improvised by pressing the
plastic shopping bag into one of the many divets in the ground near
him and filled it with some of the bottled water.

Good out-of-the-box thinking!

I've since looked on the web for various dog walk watering products,
but it occurred to me that many are limited by the size of the bottle
that comes with it.

We have a nylon folding water bowl. I forget the brand, but a
google on "folding water bowl brings up several hits.

The only problem I see with your solution would be if you are in
a concrete jungle, where there might not be a small hole in which
to nestle the bag. Of course, one could always take off a shoe
and put the bag in it, and then pour in the water... ;-)

FurPaw

--
The plural of anecdote is not proof.

To reply, unleash the dog.