The Professor's Monthly Homework Assignment: The Dog Days of Summer

The Professor of The Curious Professor Z has relaunched her Monthly Homework Assignment! Hooray! The theme of this month is to tell about how we survive the dog days of summer, when it is hot and goths still insist on wearing black!

It is rather funny that my dog days of summer are literally with dogs. Today is the first day of a week when I am dog-sitting three dogs. My parents are on a holiday and those three merry creatures are now my responsibility.

They do have proper names but I've started to call them by nicknames. The eldest is called Dictator, since she is a collie, they are used to shepherd farm animals, and therefore this Dictator tries to lead and herd others. She gets rather worried if the pack is scattered around so she has a way of keeping me in place: she sits on my foot.

Rascal with a toy.

Off my foot, you Dictator!

The second oldest is a miniature schnauzer. This small breed was used to hunt rats and other small inconvenient animals in the country. This particular miniature schnauzer is extremely interested of small furry things and he has quite a killers instinct. He also likes to make trouble. If everything is too quiet, he makes a racket as if he had spotted a stranger lurking on the property and other dogs go along with it howling and running. Therefore his new name is Agitator. 

Rascal

Rascal killing the toy

Agitator

Third dog is the newest and I've actually known him for less than a half a year. He is a normal size schnauzer and he is extremely energetic and impossibly curious about everything. He seems to laugh a little all the time. He sometimes gets a bit of trouble trying to follow mopeds or acting like some humorous action hero. He is called Rascal. 

Agitator is chewing some sort of a hay. 

Now that I have introduced my entourage, we are off to fight the troubles of Dog days of summer! For the dogs it is rather easy. There is a small fountain in the garden. After the walk in the morning they all ( besides Agitator, he is not fond of water) went to have a little cooling bath. I guess I too could go and splash around the little pool but it would not be that hygienic. Therefore I am to settle with airy short dresses and bikinis underneath. 

Dictator has a tendency to water unsuspecting toes. She takes water in her mouth, walks to the nearest person, asks for petting and then lowers her head. All water pours on the toes or even worse, on clothes!

I'm slightly sorry for this excessive amount of pics of dogs. I guess it's like with babies. Everybody believes their drooling bundle is the cutest thing ever. :D

To survive the dog days of summer, I recommend to eat lots of fruits and use parasols like The Professor in her post! I too own two parasols. The other is white lace (there were no black parasols left) and the other one is from a Chinese shop in Amsterdam, Holland. The dogs were not goth-y, so let me try to make that up to you!

Also a pic of my summer dress. Since I am alone and the mirrors and the light inside are not optimal, you'll just see it hanging on a wall. Sorry about that. :)

The pic is from behind so you can see the upper part is lace. I bought this from EMP, which is a Finnish online store for goth, rock and heavy metal fashion. The hem is uneven, the long parts are ending just above the knee. It is a really nice dress but I've had it over a year now and I've noticed it is no longer so elastic. It has became rather baggy from the waist. That's actually quite great now when it is really hot but this dress is no longer "sharp", meaning I would no longer use it outside home. 

There is a bigger reason than the weather, why I am not having that much goth content in this post. Unfortunately with this horde of dogs it is not wise to use one's favorite dresses. I took all these dog pictures right after the morning walk and the beloved dogs finished the sport pants I wore for the walk with endearing touch, since being photographed was so much fun.

Thanks for reading and do check what other participants have done for Monthly Homework Assignment!