July 2026 has officially entered the record books. It was England’s driest July on record and its second warmest, while here in Southern England it was both the warmest July and the driest month ever recorded.
Those figures probably won’t surprise anyone who spent much of the month checking the temperature, looking hopefully at rain clouds that never delivered, or wondering whether 6am could reasonably be described as the middle of the day.
For us at SkellyWAGS, the weather has shaped almost everything we have done.
Working Around the Weather
We have started 1-2-1 sessions very early in the morning, moved sessions to cooler times, rearranged classes, postponed workshops and cancelled when conditions simply weren’t suitable.
Plans have changed, diaries have been rewritten and more messages than usual have begun with, “I’m sorry, but…”
We have adapted wherever we safely could. We have made use of shade, chosen calmer activities and adjusted what we were asking of the dogs. However, when adapting wasn’t enough, we stopped.
Not one class, workshop or appointment was important enough to put a dog at risk.
The Easy Decision and the Difficult Consequences
The decision to cancel has always been easy.
If the conditions aren’t right for the dogs, the session doesn’t happen. There isn’t a debate, a hopeful glance at the thermometer or an attempt to squeeze something in because it would be more convenient.
The consequences of that decision are harder.
SkellyWAGS is a small business, and like every small business, it relies on being able to deliver the services people have booked. When sessions are repeatedly postponed or cancelled, the work doesn’t disappear. It has to be reorganised, fitted into an already busy diary or carried forward until conditions improve.
That is not written in search of sympathy. It is simply the reality of running a dog training business through an extraordinary spell of weather.
Putting welfare first sometimes has a financial cost. We knew that when we made each decision, and we would make every one of them again.
Welfare Is More Than Something We Say
It is easy for a business to say that the dogs come first. Those words look lovely on a website and sit very nicely beneath a logo.
They only really mean something when following them is inconvenient.
They mean something when a full class is cancelled. They mean something when an early start still isn’t early enough. They mean something when income is lost, plans are changed and the diary begins to resemble a particularly difficult game of Tetris.
This summer has tested our ability to adapt, but it has never tested our priorities.
The dogs came first. Every time.
Thank You for Understanding
What has made an unusual and challenging month much easier has been the understanding shown by our clients.
People have accepted changed times, rearranged their days, got up impressively early and responded to cancellations with kindness. There has been no pressure to continue and no suggestion that we should take a chance.
That support matters more than you may realise. It allows us to make decisions based entirely on the dog in front of us, without feeling that we have to choose between doing what is right and disappointing someone.
We have missed seeing many of you and your dogs as regularly as we normally would. We have also loved every early-morning session, every safely adapted activity and every opportunity we have had to keep dogs learning, sniffing and enjoying themselves without asking too much of them.
The Standard Will Not Change
Hopefully, the weeks ahead will bring cooler conditions, a little rain and something resembling a normal diary again.
Whatever the weather decides to do, our approach will stay the same.
We will adapt when we can. We will move sessions when it helps. We will cancel when we need to. We will never ask a dog to train in conditions that could compromise their comfort or wellbeing simply because a session was booked.
Running a business matters. Making a living matters.
But the dogs will always matter more.
Thank you for trusting us to make that choice.
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