After running around some sheep, Fate always stops by the water bucket to quench her thirst. I don’t let her run too long in this heat, and it is crucial for her to have water nearby. Dog’s body temperatures rise quickly, especially when working and the only way they have to cool off is through their tongues and mouths.

I have never seen an animal expend the kind of intense energy Fate expends, we keep water bowls and plastic swimming pools filled all of the time.

Interestingly, here’s what’s going through my mind.

At this point when I post a photo like this, especially in a heat wave, someone on Facebook usually warns people about heatstroke in dogs. Warnings have become a reflexive part of the national dialogue. And there are so many things to warn each other about. I don’t do it, and I don’t permit it on my pages.

There is no image or event so blessed that someone will not find something in it to warn me about. Perhaps it makes people feel bigger and better.

People always ask me why I am allergic to warnings. There are too many, and some of them are quite dumb. Small wonder so many people all see the world as a deteriorating and dangerous place.

First off,  I don’t see the world as a dangerous place, and I don’t cast the life of my dogs as being one of dependent creatures in danger of perishing at any moment if I am not ever-vigilant – about rawhides, cars, working, thieving strangers, commercial dog food, certain plans and bugs,  pit bulls, vets and countless lurking disease.

Secondly, some may see this as being oblivious or ostrich-like, but I think it is my business to take care of my dogs, and it is your business to take care of  yours, I don’t presume to tell you how to do it, I presume to tell you what I do and how I do it, and I do not ever claim to be always right or all-knowing.

I keep a close eye on my dogs, and I have never lost one to accident or food or work. Red was once attacked by a dog whose owner was in denial and he nearly lost an eye. The owner never once asked how Red was doing, or if he could see.  Nobody warned me about that attitude. That’s the only time something like that has happened to me..

If you come here on my blog and my Facebook page,  I respect you and trust you to do the same, to take care of your dogs. If you need me to tell you that dogs need water in the hot summer, then you are already beyond my help. I reserve my warnings for very serious things, like onrushing tornadoes or a collapsing building or fire or bombs dropping on London. Warnings are not my currency, they are too often just another way of keeping people anxious and joyless and paralyzed.

I fear that warning people is often about power, if  you warn someone against a danger you know about but they don’t, you are taking the position of someone who knows more and cares more. It is sometimes helpful, more often patronizing. Whenever I put up a photo of an apple tree, somebody warns me and others bout Cherry Trees – they are said to be unhealthy for some animals. I don’t have a Cherry Tree.

Warnings are mood and thought breakers, they bring every photo and subject down to its lowest common denominator. They refiect our growing anxiety as a society. The truth is life is sometimes dangerous and unpredictable, and animals are curious and explorative creatures, rarely as smart as we often like to think they are. They do not have perfect lives any more than we do.

I can’t tell you how many people I know who will no longer take their dogs for a ride in any kind of weather for fear of having their windows broken by disturbed people in the name of loving animals or of being arrested by poor police officers, drawn into yet another counter-productive and invasive realm.

A woman in Saratoga Springs, N.Y. left her dog in a car while she ran into a shop to pick up a tailored dress and when she came out, two officers arrested her and put her in handcuffs and took her to the police station, as is now required by city ordinance when a dog is left in a car in the summer for any length of time. I should say the embarrassed police officers, who had better things to do, were mortified, they had no choice.

Some warnings save lives, some take away the quality of life and have cost many dogs their freedom and chance to grow and to be socialized.

Of course I know that some dogs do perish in hot cars under the care of unforgivably thoughtless humans. People often do bad things. Sadly, that is all too human.

But I am not one of them, especially when it comes to my dogs, and unless proven otherwise, I give you the courtesy of assuming you aren’t either.