25/05/2026
Please read this properly before scrolling past.
There is a serious point buried somewhere underneath this nonsense, but you’ll have to earn it.
We dog trainers use a lot of terms: pressure and release, free shaping, flooding, counter conditioning, desensitisation, thresholds, motivation and drive.
All the usual stuff that gets thrown around when dog trainers are talking shop.
But one area that is criminally under-discussed in modern canine science is this:
Mechanical idolatry.
Mechanical idolatry describes a thermoregulatory coping response in which the canine subject, when exposed to elevated ambient temperature and reduced convective cooling, demonstrates preferential orientation, reduced locomotor activity, and sustained behavioural fixation toward an artificial airflow source. This suggests an acute self-directed attempt to optimise heat dissipation through mechanically assisted evaporative and convective cooling.
In normal language:
The dogs found the fan.
And judging by their faces, the fan is now their new best friend.
You can clearly see the symptoms: forward-facing body position, softened facial muscles, ears being launched backwards, eyes partly closed, reduced movement, and absolutely no intention of leaving the airflow zone.
Some trainers would call this environmental reinforcement. Some would call it choice-based thermoregulation.
I call it 4 dogs realising the fan is doing more useful work than their leader.
Look, you’ve probably already seen hundreds of posts warning people about dogs and heat, and for the most part the advice is sound.
Don’t walk them in the middle of the day. Don’t leave them in cars. Watch the pavement. Keep them cool. Use common sense.
I’m not going to keep repeating what everyone else is already saying, because I still like to believe common sense plays a part in most people’s lives.
So here’s another angle.
Switch your phone off for a bit. Stay indoors. Be with your family. Do something low-intensity. Take a few photos. Mess about with the dogs.
Teach them to work the camera or the phone, because frankly it is your duty to have 41,000 dog pictures on your phone from this year and 3 low-res pictures of your spouse taken in 2011.
Let them sit in front of the fan like they’ve discovered a new best friend.
You still get time with them. You still get memories. You still get something to laugh at.
They’re not around forever, and most of us forget that until the house gets quiet.
So yes, keep them safe in the heat.
But also use the weather as a reason to slow down, stay in, and actually enjoy the dogs you’ve got in front of you.
Mechanical idolatry saves lives and builds memories.
