198 They Deserve It!

For the past week, heat has hit us with a tonne of bricks in the UK. It has come to my attention that keeping your pets safe, hydrated, and cool is a top priority. If you haven’t seen the recent uproar about dogs being locked in cars for a length of time with no fresh air, then you must be living under a rock.

So, how can I keep my animal safe and healthy in the heat you ask? Well, I will tell you, my tips.

• Taking your dog for a walk, place either a barefoot or the back of your hand on the pavement for at least 5 seconds, if it is even a tiny bit painful don’t take your dog for a walk unless you can get them somewhere there is a large area of grass.

• NEVER leave your pet in a parked car! It very quickly becomes dangerously hot. You know what it is like to get into a car that has been sitting in the sun for ten minutes.

• Watch the humidity, panting is a coping mechanism to remove moisture from the lungs and cool the animal down. This becomes difficult in very high temperatures.

• Fans are not as effective for dogs as humans; the main source of reducing heat is through a dog’s paw.

• Provide a constant flow of fresh cool water. Avoid ice, animals react differently to extremes. Speak to a vet or avoid ice altogether. If you want to use ice, put water into a container, freeze it and place the frozen container into a bowl of water, restricting the animal from reaching the ice.

• There are cooling pads you can buy for an animal to lie on, often animals spread out on a flat shiny surface to cool down.

• Over the summer, have a small pool or water that they could lie in to cool down.

• Bath them with cool water.

• I sometimes put my hands under cold water and run it over my pet’s head. It should be refreshing but not a shock to their system.

• Always leave windows open

• Have somewhere they could lie comfortably in the shade

• Provide them shelter and shade outside in your garden, they like the summer but they will want to have some shade available.

• Go for a walk earlier in the mornings and later in the evenings when the temperature tends to drop.

• Air con can dehydrate an animal, provide extra water, and watch out for panting

And that is the end of my tips for keeping your animals safe. They don’t have a voice; I am their voice tonight! You bought them into your home, they depend on you to keep them safe because they can’t do it themselves.