I keep forgetting to tell you all this….

Many years ago I was judging the Cardigan Corgi National Specialty Tracking test at Oatlands in Leesburg. It was 9 degrees and windy, wind chill well under zero. My co-judge and I watched 6/6 TDX dogs fail at the last turn. We were mystified…until the luncheon (held outside…..). The handlers told us every single dog went back to their crate and emptied their water bowl….

So what happened? I’ll never actually know, but I remembered that story today, when I came back to the house and drank 2, 24 oz glasses of water before I could even consider the next thing to do. When it’s super cold, it’s generally super dry (dew point has been around 4 recently). Both humans and dogs have to heat and humidify every breath they take to avoid damaging their lungs. Tracking dogs have to heat & humidify the air as it goes through their nasal passages…. So by the end of a difficult TDX track, they are actually dehydrated. So are we when we’ve been out in the cold for a few hours.

It’s cold, no one is sweating, so we don’t think about it. Watering your dog (and yourself) in the cold is critical. It’s possible that was what happened to Mila on that last leg…..

As an aside….one of the best ways to stay warm, or to warm up if chilled, is to eat protein. These are good days to have an omelet for breakfast….with sausage and cheese! And if hungry, eat protein, not carbs. There is a physiologic reason why this is so, and I won’t bore you with it.