I am sure you are a great dog owner!

Just to offer my perspective… I live in Texas. In the summer, I took my dog walking only in the morning and evening, never in the afternoon, because I didn’t want to risk her paws burning. Unfortunately this can happen to dogs walking on asphalt. I’ve seen the pictures online. The thing with dogs is that because they want to please you, sometimes they will walk through the pain because they want to make you happy, you don’t even realize they are hurting until later. So it’s up to us to check and make sure.

The reason the busybody came out — she doesn’t know you personally. If she did, obviously she would know you would never put your dog in danger. But as annoying as it is, I’d rather have neighbors who care too much and look out for the people and animals around them then people who don’t care at all… when I was a kid, we had several nosy “grandmas” in the neighborhood. They were better than any security system. The kids played outside and their parents didn’t have to worry that someone might kidnap them or do other bad things because we had those grandmas watching everything. They also kept the kids from misbehaving or bullying each other — if a child started that nonsense, a grandma might chew him out. So it was a remarkably safe place to grow up.