Wednesday morning, I stepped into the laundry room to do what people do in a laundry room: wash a load of towels and socks. I noticed movement through the window of the door to the back porch. It was Scarlett, with Jack sniffing at her rumpus.
Scarlett was getting a drink at the water bowl. Except she wasn't. The water bowl was FROZEN!
That was our first freeze. Good thing Farmer H had listened to my nagging, and put fresh cedar shavings in the doghouses when he came home Tuesday evening. Apparently, he had not checked the water bowl the next morning. He usually fills it from the laundry room sink, using a plastic pitcher he leaves on the back porch, on top of an old student desk that sits just outside the door.
I watched Scarlett licking the top of the ice. She was an inside dog until she came here. I'm sure she never experienced a frozen water bowl. I stepped out and took the pitcher and whacked at the ice with the bottom of it. Cracked through, so Scarlett could have her drink.
I sent Farmer H a text about it. He said it only needed to be plugged in. We've had a heated water bowl ever since we got our first pound puppy, Grizzly, the half beagle, half chocolate lab, back when The Pony was an infant. In fact, the original heated water bowl was sitting next to the current heated water bowl. It having stopped heating a few years ago.
The plug-in cord to the new bowl was missing when I looked. But Farmer H said it was there. So I went back, and yes, it was coiled over next to the old water bowl, and I had mistaken it for belonging to that one. So I plugged it in. Water for all! Copper Jack regularly stops by for hydration, receiving a barking from Scarlett in the process. My Dear Departed Juno used to growl at him.
Anyhoo... the dogs have been frolicking in the cool morning temperatures, and snoozing in the front yard in the sun most of the day. Now they can once again quench their thirst at will.
4 comments:
Until I started reading your posts I had never heard of heated water bowls, but I'm glad someone invented them.
River,
Without them, the pets couldn't get a drink in the winter. We'd have to be constantly setting out a bowl, and bringing in the frozen one. You never know where they'll be, either, what with their busy schedule of chasing rabbits and playing with Copper Jack until I come home and they have to "protect" me from him by acting fierce.
HeWho keeps trying to buy a heated water bowl, despite the fact that our dogs live inside and don't even have a water bowl outside, heated or not!
Kathy,
Farmer H has left the non-working heated water bowl sitting beside the working heated water bowl for many years. I don't know why. It's not like he ever puts water in it.
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