Taking My Sweet Dogs of Summer North of the Wall

Desert Dogs Adapting to a Canadian Winter

Not all Canadian winters are the same. If you live in Toronto, the temperatures are easily 10 degrees C above the temperatures in Montreal or Edmonton. If you live in Victoria, it’s already spring in the middle of February.

I live in Ottawa. The daily temperatures can range from -35 degrees C to plus 5 degrees C with averages somewhere around -7 to -15 depending on the day. It was a pretty mild winter, with temps running around -10 degrees C most days.

I arrived in Canada after living away for four years. My last two years were in Dubai, where winter temperatures went below 20 degrees C overnight for about 6 weeks in January and February. I was too hot all the time, and winter brought a bit of respite for this northerner. I was happy to come home and eager to be properly chilled for a few months of each year. This is my first winter home in all that time, and I am remembering that my skin dries out like crazy each winter and that I need to wear long johns for around three or four months until things start to warm up.

While in Dubai, I (wrongly) thought that I was finally in a more stable job and I could finally adopt that dog I had always wanted. I was looking for a retired and/or older racing dog. There are lots around in the region, mostly salukis but a few greyhounds and whippets. I adopted a saluki called Lelos in May of 2016. The rescuers thought he might be at least 10 years old. At any rate, the rescuers…