[Gpdd] CARE: summer cooling

[Louise August]

I was reading about someone using an ice block for summer cooling and it
made me remember this...

My first experience with GPs was when I was a teenager - don't ask how long
ago! Some adult friends of my parents had a GP named Ziggy. Every year in
anticipation of their vacation Ziggy would "write to us" to reserve his own
holiday accommodations. We we're thrilled to have him live with us for a
couple of weeks while they were away. 

It was usually summer (Michigan) humid and hot. We didn't have air
conditioning so we were hot and we assumed Ziggy was too. I recall filling
a child's plastic paddling pool with a few inches of water and sitting
around it on lawn chairs with our feet in it - very cooling. Then we got
the idea to put Ziggy in the cool water too. He loved it, paddled around,
made lots of beans in the water and climbed onto our feet when he was ready
to come out. 

I haven't tried anything like that with my pigs - we have AC now and the
pigs seem terrified if I take them outside.

I've never heard anyone else on the digest taking their pigs for a swim. Do
most pigs like water? That was a long time ago, but looking back I'm pretty
sure Ziggy wasn't distressed or unhappy in the water. He also lived to be
eight years old. 

Anyone have any thoughts on this?  (summer will come back one day to the
frozen north!)



Love from all of us,
Louise and her masters, Phineas, Delilah, Hillary, Pandora, Mostly,
Neville, and Mr. Norman, the rat