19/06/2025
Good morning,
I read this this morning and found it interesting, thought I would share .🐾☀️
Kay🐶x
When summer arrives and the weather warms up, it is natural for us to want to spend more time out with our dogs, while not always realising the risks higher temperatures can pose for them. Dogs, in general, manage heat less well than us because they have fewer sweat glands and mostly lose heat from their mouths through panting. Plus their inner body temperatures are already slightly higher than ours. (A normal human body temperature is between 97.6 - 99.6 Fahrenheit when a dog's is between 101-102.5 F).
Moreover once a dog's temperature rises to 104 F or more it begins to be in serious trouble of heatstroke, collapse and even organ failure and possible death. And this can all happen frighteningly fast. Humidity as well as heat can also be particularly dangerous to dogs.
PREVENTION
Key things to do when the weather hots up is to always walk your dog at cooler times such as very early in the morning or later in the evening. And cut out all the more active stuff like ball chasing. With elderly dogs, and those with heart or breathing issues it may be best not to exercise them at all in higher temperatures.
Black coated dogs, like Border collies, naturally absorb more heat and thus may find hotter weather more uncomfortable, especially if they are not more acclimatised to it. During the hotter parts of the day your dog also needs to rest in the shade, or a cooler room (with a fan or air con), to lessen as much strain as possible on their heart rate and metabolism.
Plenty of cool fresh drinking water should also always be available to them. There are also special cooling mats or jackets you can now buy for dogs.
Under NO circumstances leave dogs in a car or other vehicle in hotter or even just warmer weather - which can so often prove to be a deathtrap for them. Even in overcast weather, or with the windows open, cars can still heat up frighteningly fast inside. Also never leave any dog anywhere outside where they do not have ready access to shade and cool water.
HEATSTROKE – THE EARLIEST SIGNS
Heatstroke is one of those conditions in dogs that begins with milder symptoms – i.e. excess panting, greater difficulty breathing, lethargy. Then moves on to more serious ones – like drooling, foaming at the mouth, shaking, vomiting/diarrhoea, pale or bright red gums – before finally escalating into seizures or collapse and loss of consciousness. And you must be mindful of how rapidly one set of symptoms can progress to another without more urgent and immediate intervention to cool your dog down again. (More on how to do this a bit later).
