Heatstroke can kill in minutes
Did you know that dogs can get in distress pretty quick when left alone in a hot car?
Even if you leave the windows open a bit and park under the shade of a tree it’s really not enough on a warm day to allow us to breathe properly.
The air inside a car heats up pretty fast once the air conditioning is turned off and if you use in- car fans please remember these are only moving air around which is already hot – not helpful to a hot dog.
Dogs can die of heatstroke in 10 - 15 minutes inside a hot car and for smaller dogs like me it would take even less; even if we don’t die we can suffer horrible brain damage and seizures from being exposed to heatstroke.
You see 10 minutes is less time than it takes to grab a couple of items at the supermarket.
This is why we dogs don’t sweat through skin pores all over our body like humans do: in fact we only have two ways to cool off ( and remember most of us have furry coats as well)
1) by panting - that’s why you see us with our tongues out on warm days. We are cooling down as well as looking for a nice cool bowl of water to lap up.
2) by sweating through the pads on our paws. Yes dogs actually do have sweaty feet.
So you can see how easily dogs can overheat so it is much kinder to leave us at home on hot days.
No matter how much we love the car and how much we love to be with you – unless it is a trip to the beach or the park, please leave dogs at home on hot days but make sure to create a shady area for us with plenty of cool water to drink and our toys to play with.
I promise you we will be much happier and healthier and will look forward to giving you an extra special welcome when you get home.