FOR KB

The Boys buggered off into the bush this morning. You'll probably be aware of the heatwave NSW is currently experiencing. Mid to high 40's in degrees. Brutal.
Anyway, they eventually reappeared about 2 hours later; Scoob first, puffing and panting but not overly so followed by Mutley about 15 minutes later...

...And he was fucked. I mean really knackered by the look of things. So much so that his panting had an "edge" to it - a hoarseness I've never seen nor heard before and his heart must've been working at 200 beats a minute.

Here we get to the point; his tongue was noticeably redder than usual (usually it, and in fact his gums, is a healthy pink). It also was lolling out of his mouth further than usual and had expanded at the end to approximately twice the normal width. In doing so it had reduced its thickness by half so in effect it was a wide, thin sliver. It was red because it was engorged with blood trying to cool near the surface of the tongue and the change in size and thickness increased the surface area and decreased the distance the blood vessels were from said surface.
All combined in cooling the blood.

All the while he's panting like his life depends on it. So hot and bothered he appeared, he couldn't even drink from his bowl for more than a few laps at a time, just enough to take on some desperately needed fluid while cooling the tongue, then would return to the verging on apoplectic panting (I really thought he was going to expire so frantic was he. Shit, I know if I was breathing like that, a heart attack would have eventuated).

After about 20 minutes of this, his rate began to slow, his tongue shrunk back to it's normal size and returned to the normal pink.
Was he walking around leaving small damp patches on the floor from his "sweating feet"? No - don't be absurd.

Let me tell you about sweat, KB. We (humans - for the purposes of this explanation. Horses as well - and no doubt other species) sweat to cool down. We do this by sweating obviously; the fluid lies on the surface of the skin and acts very like ether (if you remember your schooling, the ether experiment was where a small amount of the liquid was placed on an area of skin which would immediately feel cool...).
Human sweat works in the same fashion - i.e. cooling the skin, and the blood rushes to the surface of the cooling skin to take advantage. Similar to a car radiator where the water circulates and is cooled by the wind.

This is why animals with heavy, uniform body hair don't sweat. I will concede, however, despite having no evidence per se, that there may be sweat glands on the feet but they are so insignificant as to be pointless in terms of heat control.

So, your source? Go up to him/her, slap him/her about the head - one of those "THWACK" glancing blows that leaves the hair sticking up in an odd fashion, and say, "see next time you think about opening your mouth - don't!"

Be good KB - don't believe everything you read - or hear (except of course here, where you'll find the Gospel!)