Busy schedules can mean squeezing in that dog walk whenever you have a few minutes. But did you know that summer heat on asphalt can make the surface dangerously hot for your pet's paws?

The "dog days of summer" span less than a month but the heat stays intense for weeks (or months) after that. And since we want to make sure you're always able to plan each day with weather conditions in mind, we have unleashed a brand-new dog walking scale that spells out which hours are best, and which hours are downright dangerous:

Some things to keep in mind as you use the scale above:

• Click (or tap) to toggle to the different hours and see all of the details for a specific hour's forecast at the bottom of the scale.
• The location is automatically set to the city in your location picker at the top of the weather.com home page, so be sure to change that location if you need to see a forecast for a different city.
• These show maximum surface temperatures of pavement, so other surfaces' temperatures will vary.

Be sure to bookmark this page and use it before you take the pooch out for an afternoon walk!

More pet safety from weather.com:

• How to keep dogs cool in summer
• Are your pets ready for hurricane season?
• Is it dangerous to give an overheated dog cold water?