It is a Saturday afternoon in late August, and the dogs are glaring at me.

Golf is on the TV, the BMW Championship. One of the two-leggers who lives here is watching, and I'm reading the newest issue of The New Yorker, mostly for the cartoons.

Savannah and Rikki have been inside for several hours and are tired of it, despite having gone on an hour-long walk at sunrise and a shorter jaunt around 10 a.m. By now--it's 1 p.m.--they usually spend some time chasing balls in the nearby dog park and racing up and down its length in pursuit of one of the many bicyclists who whiz by on their way to the Arkansas River Trail.

But it's 103 degrees outside, too hot to strap on their harnesses and snuffle along one of their usual destinations: the Arkansas River Trail, Kavanaugh Boulevard through Hillcrest (with a shared pint of Kroger ice cream on a shady bench in front of the store), Emerald Park in North Little Rock, the Big Dam Bridge or Argenta's Main Street.

The dogs, however, know there's another option. We can go shopping.

The best way we've found to overcome the dreariness of a steamy summer afternoon is to visit dog-welcoming Bass Pro Shops in west Little........

© Arkansas Online