26/06/2024
☀️🚨
We have seen a lot of posts over the past week giving poor and outdated advice and reccomend cooling methods for dogs with heat realted illness 🌞❌️
Please only take advice from reputable sources and do your own research.
🐾 74% of heat related illness is induced by exercise
🚗 Cool first, transport second
- Cool the dog before they enter the vehicle, ideally monitor their body temperature and aim to drop this below 40°C.
- Cool the vehicle interior any way you can, open doors and windows (if safe to do so), or switch on air conditioning.
- Transport the dog in compliance with any legal requirements, but ideally ensure continuous air movement over the dog to facilitate ongoing cooling if they remain overheated.
⏳️ Cool your dog as quickly as possible
- The longer the dog stays hot, the more damage potentially occurring and tissues like the brain and kidney may never recover.
💧 Cool using water – the colder the better
- The advice to “only use tepid/lukewarm water” is not supported by evidence.
- Cold-water (at 0.1–15.0 °C) effectively cools dogs with exertional hyperthermia.
🪭 Combine cold water with air movement for evaporative cooling
- Appropriate for ALL dogs, regardless of health or consciousness.
- Safe for older dogs, dogs with underlying health concerns, respiratory disease, and even comatose dogs.
🛁 Cold water immersion
*Cold-water immersion is an effective cooling method for hot dogs*
- Only appropriate for CONSCIOUS dogs, otherwise the risk of drowning is too great.
- Most appropriate for healthy dogs, so those younger and fitter, without respiratory disease, brachycephaly (flat faces), or cardiovascular disease.
🚫 Current advice is to STOP COOLING once the dog’s temperature drops below 40°C (many texts say stop at 39.5°C). This is especially important for older dogs, unwell dogs, and unconscious/comatose dogs as they will struggle to regulate their body temperature.
https://heatstroke.dog/2024/04/12/are-you-ready-to-beat-the-heat-cooling-hot-dogs-more-myth-busting/
This study provides evidence cold water immersion (in water at 0.1–15.0 °C) can be used to effectively cool healthy dogs with exertional hyperthermia. The results of this observational study of cooling methods used to manage hyperthermic dogs at canicross events further highlights the importance of the Vet-COT's message to “cool first, transport second” when managing dogs with HRI, because around a quarter of the dogs in this study continued to get hotter in the 5-min post-exercise and being housed in a vehicle significantly delayed and reduced canine cooling. When transporting dogs post-exercise, care should be taken to cool the vehicle before entry, and owners should ensure air movement around the dog to facilitate ongoing cooling and prevent worsening of hyperthermia.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0306456524000457?via%3Dihub
Credit to the team at heatstroke.dog for the continuous research and updated guidance on this topic 🌟
