Explore Life with Pets
Hot Dogs! Keep Your Pup Safe in the Heat!
It is hot outside! The temperatures here in Portland, Oregon are close to 100F this week, and the rest of the country seems to be cooking as well. To prevent problems with hot dogs, follow these safety tips!
Top 5 tips for keeping your dog safe during a heat wave:
1. No car rides! Leave the pups at home when running errands. Even in the morning time, your car can rapidly heat up, and that cracked window does nothing to keep them cool. A car can overheat in minutes at 70 degrees. Keep the hot dogs out of the car during the summer months and avoid a tragedy.
2. Exercise your dogs in the early morning, when the air and pavement are coolest. Hot pavement can easily burn their paws, and exercise in the hot afternoon can lead to heat stroke. Follow the 5 second rule- If the pavement is too hot for you to touch for 5 seconds, then it is too hot for your dog’s paws.
To learn more about the dangers and signs of heat stroke, click here.
3. Make sure your dogs always have access to cool water. Use ice cubes, give them frozen veggies as snacks (mine love frozen green beans and carrots). You can even make frozen low sodium broth cubes in ice cube trays to encourage hydration.
4. Keep them safe at the river/lakes. Bring potable water with you for them to drink and prevent them from drinking from the river/lake. If you wouldn’t drink it, don’t let them drink it. If they are swimming, use a doggy life jacket to keep them safe. Keep an eye out for algae advisories-some locations have toxic algae blooms going on, and this is dangerous for both humans and dogs. Also, watch out for dead fish!! Dogs love to snack on them, but in our area they can get a parasite from eating fish that can make them very ill (commonly known as salmon poisoning, although other dead fish can carry it).
Great post, I have two small pups and during the summer months they are inside most of the time.
This is so important! Thank you for sharing such good information
Thank you, thank you for writing about this! My day job is in the pet care industry and people can be so naive when it comes to the heat and how it affects their pet. Nothing pisses me off more than a dog in a hot car. Ugh!
I miss having my own dog! But great post, it seems that while lots of people worry about themselves in the heat that they totally forget about their little friends. It’s been 44 degrees here the past few days… I can’t imagine what it’s like for a dog!
Great article for taking car your dog
Great tips! My little pup in Orlando will love this 🙂