Jasper must be steppedog's secret brother 
I didn't make a good decision wrt walking call morning.
Had to drop dd at school early for a trip, school is in next town, next to very nice dog walking spot, so stuck dog in car and drove off.
Go to the place nice and early 8:15, not yet hot. It is a huge flat hill top which is a common, and you park the car, walk up (not far, it is nearly flat) and then suddenly the view opens and you have half of England spread out beneath you. Truly lovely. Air is full, really full of larks, singing their hearts out.
So turns out wasn't a good idea
- open hill = no shade
- new place = steppedog needs to run round and explore at 90 million miles per hour
- long grass. Steppedog LOVES long grass, but he bounds through it like a deer and that is pretty tiring.
- no water (I had drinking water in car, just no river/pond etc) no nowhere to paddle and cool off.
10 minutes in and he was panting hard, tongue down to his knees (rarely gets like that on a normal walk)
stopped and rested on bench with a view until his panting had slowed.
But it was no good really, I pottered (only walked 2 km in total) he just ran in enormous circles, bounding through the grass at full flat out running speed. Non Stop.
stopped again on second bench, then decided to make our way back to car. He was very thirsty at the car, and is now flat out asleep at home.
Mind you, if I hadn't read all the scaremongering threads about over heated dogs on her, might have continued, not realising it was potentially serious.