Give Me A Break

Around here we have been having some patches of pretty intense heat and humidity. It’s feel like you get smacked in the face by it as soon as you walk outside kind of hot and humid. Not my favorite. As many of you know, we live in a 2 bedroom condo. While the open floor plan does provide some space for the dogs to play, it doesn’t cut it in terms of them (especially Ares) getting enough exercise. So we take daily 3.5 mile walks. But that becomes a bit of a problem when it literally feels like you’re walking through hell. Or at least how I imagine hell would feel.  

Typically Ares and Chaos are walked 6 days a week Monday through Saturday in the warmer months. Even if it rains there tends to be at least 45 minutes when it stops and we can get our walk in. During the week we wait until later in the evening to go and head out early Saturday morning to beat the heat. Our dogs have short fur with no undercoat and do just fine in the heat as long as it’s not for too long without a break. We take Sundays off to sleep in. Okay, yea right. We take Sundays off to lay around before we start the day. Sundays should be for coffee, donuts and snuggles.

 

But when it gets to the point that it feels like 100 degrees, we know a long walk it out of the question. Exercise is important for dogs just as it is for people. Low impact walking keeps their hearts healthy and muscles and joints strong. Plus, it drains physical and mental energy. They say a tired dog is a happy dog and I whole heartedly agree. Different dogs need different levels of exercise but we know ours need the daily long walk. So when we have to skip, I get to feeling guilty. We play inside but I can tell they aren’t tired at bedtime. And then I feel bad. Obviously I can’t change the weather and it would be irresponsible to subject them to conditions that weren’t safe for a long walk. But I still feel bad.

Recently I’ve felt like I’m riding the bad luck train. A string of unwanted events have occurred but all of them have been beyond my control. So I’m trying to focus on working on the things that I can control. Like giving myself a break. I really do my very best to give the furbabies the most amazing life possible, keep our home clean and take care of myself. But every once in a while I need to stop worrying about skipping a walk, put off doing a load of laundry or cleaning the bathroom, or ditching my own work out. Sometimes I need to just hang with the furballs while sitting on my ass and watching TV for 3 hours, La Croix in hand of course (flavor of the week is Peach Pear, yum!) and not feel guilty about it. And that, my friends, is exactly how I spent my Tuesday night this week.

Do you give yourself a break?