can you just temporarily disable the watchdog
A good dog can not be turned off. I would not use one that could. If it was possible to turn the dog off, a program going astray could, in the process turn the watchdog off totally defeating the purpose of having a dog in the first place. It is for the very same reason that it takes two different writes to kick a decent dog. If one write would do it, the program gone astray could execute that easily.

Erik