So it’s started to get a little warm here in Western Australia and yesterday it hit 40 degrees Celsius which is the first time this summer that it’s hit this temperature.

Today the forecast is a very warm 38 C and tomorrow (new years day) we’ll be hitting the 40’s again.

Nothing for a bloke to do really other then strip off,  jump into the pool and enjoy a cold beer.

What if your a cat with a built in fur coat though?

Our cat Charlie really struggles with the hot weather. Being black doesn’t help and even the shade provided by the canopy covering our patio offers little relief.

Cats for some reason don’t quite understand the benefits of refrigerated air conditioning. In ‘Cat World’ it’s always bound to be cooler outside even though the wonders of modern air conditioning means that the difference between inside and outside temperatures could be as much as 10 – 15 degrees C.

Charlie after his brief introduction to a jug of water. I think he's plotting something

In the three years that we’ve been here we’ve tried a number of things to bring down Charlie s core body temperature during the really hot days.

As frequent visits to the vets have taught us, one of the few places where cats sweat is through their paws. They don’t have the ability to loose heat by panting like a dog or sweating like us humans do.

One thing we’ve tried was ice cubes in the water bowl. Unfortunately this approach will only work if you can convince your cat to get up from his shady corner for a drink. Yesterday this just was not going to happen and the ice cubes soon melt in this really hot weather.

What does work though is a big jug of water!

Now, I don’t mean that in the ‘chuck a jug of water over your cat’ kind of way

What we do is simply sit down next to the cat and give him a good stoke.

The sly part is between each stroke we dip our hand in the jug of water so that over a period of time we manage to give him a good soaking.

Anyone who has attempted to bath a cat will know that getting your cat wet is often not a very wise move. For Charlie though, he was either to warm to rip us to pieces with his claws or simply couldn’t be bothered. Either way he was happy to be given some relief from the heat.

Charlie has been showing an interest in the swimming pool of late. If he decides to start taking regular dips then I’ll get the clips posted up on Youtube!