Most of the summer has been blissfully, unusually cool and amenable to sneaking in scooter runs here and there. But August, it seemed, was determined to make up for the previous few months by stringing together as many 90F+ days as possible. So we were off for awhile.

We kept busy; even in hot weather we can take quick trips around the block to practice ON BY, GEE, and HAW. Squash continues conditioning on the underwater treadmill and going to Rally class. And a lot of free play in the backyard, with plenty of cool-off breaks in the air conditioning and the sun canopy:

Towards the end of August, Squash and I took a short road trip to spend a day with a group of dog friends and their humans. He had a blast; there was a lot of this:

And a lot of that:

And a fair bit of the other thing:

This is how he felt about the day overall (photo by Lindsay):

But there was so much of this, that, and the other thing that at the end of the day he ended up with some really worn spots on his paws. Which meant that JUST as a cool front rolled into town he earned a couple of weeks off scootering. We probably should have used the time for more practice on commands, but we pretty much took it off completely, mostly just hanging around in the backyard doing nothing much and letting paw pads heal.

Well, maybe a little neighborhood patrol duty (isn’t she beautiful?).

Earlier in the summer, Squash had smashed some panels out of the screen door off the back porch, and so we turned it into a game.

And then this weekend, with Squash’s feet finally looking scooter-ready again, another heat wave rolled into town. Well played, universe. Well played.

Later this week it’s supposed to cool off again for real. So hopefully we’ll be back on the scooter again in no time and get into our fall groove. Although I need winter snow to skijor, really fall is my favorite season for mushing. Hopefully it will start this week, if not by the calendar then by the temperatures. In the meantime, you don’t need to send help. We’re just hanging out, being.