Our Aunt Flo visits us once a year during the summer.
Aunt Flo is quite outspoken, especially when it comes to her personal comfort. She always lets us know if the water heater settings aren’t to her liking or if we keep the house too cool. We have never been able to settle our differences about the temperature setting of the central air conditioner. We have a dog that is a shepherd husky mix, which means he has a double layer of fur. We consider him an important member of our family, and keeping the air conditioner set to a comfortable temperature for him is important. So when Aunt Flo is visiting, she can complain all she wants to that the thermostat is set too low because our dog’s needs are important too. If he spends a lot of time laying on the air register, for example, we can tell that he’s too hot. Last summer we lost power during a heat wave and our poor dog was very uncomfortable. Not Aunt Flo – she thought that the house temperature was just right. When the power and the air conditioner came back on, her complaining started all over again. Once she tried to convince us that air conditioning isn’t good for dogs and that their panting is enough to cool them down. But our vet told us that panting essentially does nothing if the air is too hot or humid. She said that if a dog gets overheated, it can lead to heat stress and exhaustion. We have finally settled on a compromise with Aunt Flo. We now keep the air conditioner set at 76 degrees during her visits. But the minute that she leaves, we rush to the thermostat to lower the setting to our dog’s favorite temperature.