hot weather can be deadly for your dog and I know it feels like I've been
going on on this topic for a little bit the last month or so but make no mistake
when the sun's out when the temperature starts to climb your dog can be in real
danger and today I want to share with you four stories that I know are not
unique that will just help highlight some of the problems and some of the
dangers that your dog can come across hi I'm dr. Alex from ourpetshealth.com
helping you and your dog to live a healthier happier life so if that's
something you're interested in then consider hitting that subscribe button
down below so I just wanted to share with you a few experiences that I've had
about how hot weather can be dangerous for your dog and the first one that I'll
start with is a story of a young puppy so this puppy was brought to me it was
spring it was a warm spring day but it wasn't baking hot the Sun was out and I
actually saw this pup here it had a discharge in its eye for a few days and
so it was brought to me and found actually a grass seed under its eyelid
now that is not the story unfortunately because that was a simple fix could have
removed that grass seed and with some medication sent in the puppy on his way
now what I didn't expect was 3040 minutes
later for this owner to rush in in real distress with the limp dog in her arms
and as soon as the dog was put on the table in my concert room it was very
apparent that the puppy had passed away when I put my hands on the puppy's body
it was baking I was amazed at how hot it was and you know clearly that was the
problem and I later found out that the lady had gone to the library actually to
renew some books to get a few new books she had left the puppy in the car and
she had left it in the Sun and the temperature had just climbed now being a
small young dog it didn't take very long at all for his body temperature to start
climbing and by the time the lady got back to the car and it must have been no
more than about 20 minutes the dog was dead and the body was baking hot so you
know it's just a really short trip it doesn't need to be that
hot outside you may or may not have seen the video and I'll link up here of me
sitting in a car to show you just how hot it gets and how quickly a car gets
hot open windows don't do anything for your dog and this you know it's not a
unique situation at the moment I'm seeing friends and colleagues put up on
Facebook of people that have recorded dogs being left in cars it's something
that happens all the time and it's just so unnecessary and this is just one
example of a fatal outcome so you know don't mess around if you're going out
don't take your dog with you certainly don't leave them in the car
okay so my next story is of a bulldog and you may or may not be aware the
Bulldogs being a brachycephalic squash nosed dog breed they are more prone to
developing heat stress to their body temperature climbing to getting
heatstroke and on this particular day it was summer day it was really warm I
remember it um it was a Sunday and I was on call and I got yeah it's got the
phone call that this dog wasn't you know seems to be struggling it wasn't doing
that well seem to be panting and not able to settle now by the time it got to
me I was very clear that he was really struggling to breathe his making an
awful lot of noise in his throat his breathing was very fast very shallow and
he was going kind of slightly blue now it quickly became apparent that he was
about to go into respiratory arrest so his breathing was about to stop and we
made the decision to Anisa ties him to put a tube down his throat to help him
breathe now a rather unexpected consequence of this was because he was
struggling so hard to breathe he swallowed an awful lot of air that had
caused his stomach to dilate to bloat and his stomach had then twisted and
that's something called a gdv or gastric dilation volvulus and that is a fatal
condition without surgery so again after discussion with the owners the decision
was made to take him to surgery where everything went well and that's a pretty
big surgery but yeah was no complications there he then seemed to
recover pretty well but his throat had swollen so much that after we extubated
him off we woke him up for his anaesthetic it was only about 20 minutes
or so until again he started to really struggle to breathe and we had to re
anesthetize him and reintubate him from there it became apparent that the only
way we were going to get him through was to give him her trach heals to me so I
put a tube directly into his throat and at that stage the owners elected that
enough was enough and it was decided that he was to be put
to sleep so you know that's just another way with an at-risk dog an at-risk dog
breed that heat can be really dangerous now that's really not a usual
consequence of getting hot but it's something that we need to be aware of
our brachycephalic dogs so that air is a really tiny and I've spoken about that
at great length in a couple of video so one all about the short nose squash nose
dogs and problems that they have and another more recent one all about the
ugliest dog in the world and I'll link that up here that might be something
that you're kind of interested in listening to but yeah that's just
another another example of how hot weather can be harmful for your dog now
on the same day so it was a very hot day like I say I also saw a dog that had got
laryngeal paralysis so that was something that the owners were aware of
it had coped all right with this problem for a number of months and what happens
here is that the the larynx to the voice box it's got two flaps that close when
when you swallow when you're eating and that stops you or stops dogs as well
from inhaling their food into their lungs but what it also means is that the
airway is more narrow and again they're more prone to overheating in exactly the
same way that this this unfortunate Bulldog was and so it was another risk
dog and yet the we've had this discussion before that if anything
happened the owners had elected not to go to surgery to correct that problem in
the first place and they were aware of the risks and so this dog became very
unwell started vomiting really struggling for breath and so the
decision was made again to euthanize this dog unfortunately
yeah that's another at-risk dog in the heat that unfortunately ended up dying
as a result of that hot weather so the final story I want to share with you
today is a working dog so this dog needed to do some work to round up some
stock but the Sun was out the weather was hot and these working dogs they just
go and they go and they do their job they do what's expected of them until
they drop and unfortunately in this case this dog just works itself to the ground
it got so hot and it got far too hot before its owner realized that it was it
was overheating and it was developing heatstroke he tried to cool it off as
quickly as he could he threw it in the river tried to cool it down but
unfortunately by that stage it was too late by the time the dog was brought
into the clinic its temperature was actually was really low they're being
called potentially too aggressively it's blood work showed that it's kidneys it's
liver were completely destroyed they weren't working at all and the dog was
nearly comatose and rather than go through a slow and distressing death the
dog was euthanized and that's just an example of how our dogs they don't know
what's good for them they won't necessarily rest we need to manage them
appropriately we need to be aware of the risks that they're under and go about
reducing those risks to keep them cool in the first place to prevent them
overheating to be aware of what we can do to cool our dogs down quickly and how
to go about that if we need to but obviously it's far better to avoid the
situation and so my final kind of story today was actually one that was sent in
by one of my newsletter subscribers just commenting on the information I gave
about the hot weather and they said that it was really timely because they went
for a walk it was only eight in the morning it was cooler than than the heat
of the day but it was still warm and importantly as well it was really humid
it was really muggy and this lady recognized that her dog was getting hot
recognized before it was too late cooled them off appropriately went straight
home had a relaxing rest of the day had a quiet rest of the day and that dog was
absolutely fine and that's really what it's all about it's about recognizing
the best way we can go about keeping them quarter in this case absolutely the
right thing have your exercise at the early morning or in the late evening
when things are a little bit cooler spotting the signs of heat stroke so
that's really important keeping an eye out being aware that even with the best
planning that overheating does happen but recognizing those signs and taking
action so getting your dog cool cooling them down quickly and that's something
that we know time and again will and does save lives so this is going to be
my last hot weather video for the summer with any luck anywhere I want to have to
come back to tell you about any more tragic stories that I've come across but
I just wanted to share these real-world these real-life situations to let you
know that you know this isn't just an abstract concept it's not something that
you know happens every now and then it's a very real risk in hot weather in the
summer for our dogs overheating and they can have fatal consequences so enjoy the
hot weather I know it's baking hi here I'm in the
new forest it's fantastic but we need to be aware of the dangers and the risks to
our dogs so enjoy the hot weather keep your dogs cool keep them safe and until
next time i'm dr. alex from our pets health because they're family