24/06/2024
📌🐶Some thoughts on the occasion of another "viral" post on social media that dog groomers also share 🐶📌
We, as a profession, have a great responsibility to our clients.
They have the right to expect that we have the medical knowledge necessary to deal with crises in the salon. And if we are to give medical advice to our clients, it must be correct. Otherwise, the consequences could be devastating.
A "fact" post is currently being shared about not getting the backs of dogs with heatstroke wet because then various terrible things happen.
It comes in different versions, but they all have the same image attached: a dog lying on its side with towels wrapped around its paws.
Just because it says ‼️‼️SHARE!SHARE ‼️‼️in a post does not mean that the text is correct.... 😘 One of the posts shared a lot is made up by a "Mantra carver" - I am unsure if we really should take medical advice from a page that creates mantras.🤔
Make a habit of quickly checking https://scholar.google.com/ for scientific facts before sharing medical advice—unless the post contains links to various scientific articles for reference. You can also check with your vet to see if the advice given is correct.
The post in question is a mishmash of various "facts" that have been mixed up, misunderstood, and contradict each other.
First, there is the claim that dogs get organ damage if you cool down their backs by soaking them or putting wet towels on them.
-" Due to the cold, the veins contract and the high temperature (above 42 degrees), the proteins in the blood coagulate, making the blood thick and viscous.
As a result of the combination of the two, the heart can no longer receive blood, and the organs fail one by one due to the lack of oxygen."
Another version of the same post says something more amusing - " the proteins in the blood will collide if you cool the back, and that will cause blood clots."
I don't know how they think that will happen. 🤔Will the proteins suddenly go wild and start to bounce around in the blood vessels?
What the author of the post has confused is that when the skin is cooled, the vessels in the skin contract to reduce heat loss, and blood transport to the skin is reduced—the blood stays in the centre of the body instead.
This causes the dog's cooling to be impaired, as blood flow to the skin is otherwise step no. 1 in the temperature regulation process—the body sends warm blood there for the heat to radiate through the skin.
The rapid contraction of the surface blood vessels happens if we put the dog in an ice bath, not when using ordinary tap water. It doesn't damage internal organs because the body's flow is unaffected.
The same thing happens, for example, when it rains, and the dog's skin gets wet and cold.
Many studies have shown that dogs can be drastically cooled by immersing them in cold baths, sometimes even ice baths.
The studies concluded that the overall most effective water temperature for cooling in heatstroke is 10- 16°C, and no such damage, as stated in the Facebook post, occurred due to the baths.
The problem with the internal organs not getting any blood occurs when the body desperately sends more and more blood to the skin to get rid of the excess heat, not because the circulation to the skin is reduced.
DIC—disseminated intravascular coagulation, which is the technical name for the problem that occurs with the blood—does not happen at the initial stage when we try to cool the dog and, therefore, has no impact on whether the vessels in the skin contract or not.
It happens later in the process, sometimes several days later.
However, the author misunderstood what was happening. The blood does not clot like egg yolk or cold syrup.
And the proteins are not bouncing around and colliding...
The stress on the body caused by the heat triggers pro-inflammatory substances, which, together with the effects of dehydration, trigger the secretion of clotting substances. It also damages vessel walls and internal organs.
It doesn't cause viscous blood that sticks to the skin and causes oxygen deprivation.
The author is correct, however, that you should avoid wrapping the dog in wet towels on the fur-covered areas—not because it kills the dog—but because it reduces the evaporation of the water you have flushed over the dog. Evaporation is an important part of cooling, as the evaporation process consumes heat and, therefore, cools.
However, the author strangely says in the next breath that you MUST put a towel on the dog to cool it .... So the author seems a bit confused now. Was the towel dangerous or not?
"Cool paws and chest/lower abdomen with a damp towel."
And yes, if you don't have access to water to rinse off the dog, cooling the skin on thin-haired areas using cold towels is a good option.
The author has missed out on the fact that these are good areas because large vessels transporting heat from inside the body are located here. When the dog needs to get rid of excess heat, the blood is directed here, and that also means that when the dog needs to conserve heat, the circulation is cut off. All the terrible things they say would happen on the back will also occur here.
⛑️ What should we do if the dog gets heat stroke? ⛑️
All scientific literature agrees that active cooling of the dog before/during transportation to the veterinarian is a primary factor and a significant contributing factor in whether the dog survives.
Rinse the dog so that it is thoroughly wet to the skin. The cooler the water, the better.
Wind draughts over the wet body also increase cooling. At home, have a fan in front of the dog, and full ventilation/windows rolled down when driving to the vet. The wind draught over the dog’s body will help to keep it cool.
Check the dog's body temperature regularly and stop cooling when it is down to 39C. Otherwise, the dog risks getting too cold, which can also cause problems, including triggering heat-creating actions in the body.
Finally, the author is correct in advising giving the dog water. It is important that the dog drinks to prevent dehydration. The act of panting consumes a lot of fluids, so it needs to be replaced to avoid dehydration problems.
Here are links for those who want to read more and understand the process in the body and what treatment to do.
The first is a Facebook post by experts on canine heatstrokes—a much more reliable source than a "mantra carver".
https://www.facebook.com/hotdogscanineheatstroke/posts/pfbid036KZxhiKCz2EkFGK18C9H3A5ZRVWUR8Y71bAPqpHvHuuT1BrsnNVSYgPJXwDCotDml
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/epdf/10.1080/23328940.2017.1367457
https://sci-hub.se/https://doi.org/10.1080/17415349.2016.1245119
https://www.vin.com/apputil/content/defaultadv1.aspx?pId=22915&catId=124655&id=8896657
