Overheating and heat stroke in dogs. Sunstroke in Dogs Heat Stroke in Dogs Symptoms

Dogs are not as good at fighting heat as we are. They are better suited to retain heat than to give it away, so they overheat faster than humans. As such, we may not realize that a dog has overheated until the symptoms are suddenly apparent. Heat stroke in dogs is very serious condition, often appearing unexpectedly for you and developing in a few minutes to a critical situation. Knowing how to deal with heat stroke in dogs can save your dog's life.

Steps

Recognize the symptoms of heat stroke in your dog. If you find that your dog is dehydrated or has some or all of the following symptoms, you will need to respond immediately:

Unusual breathing - accelerated, noisy
high rectal temperature(see below how to measure it)
big thirst
Weakness and/or fatigue
Frequent vomiting
Disorientation
Bright red tongue and pale gums
The skin around the muzzle or neck does not return to its previous shape after pinching
Difficulty breathing
fainting or coma
thick saliva
Cardiopalmus

If you suspect that your dog has overheated, immediately place him in the shade or in a cool room. Blocking the heat source is an important immediate step. If possible, take your dog inside the building to an air-conditioned room. If this is not possible, try to find a fan.

Cool down the dog. Depending on what is available to you, do your best to cool your dog down quickly. To some options may include the following:

Blow the dog and ruffle its fur with your fingers. After cooling with water, it will help to blow air on the dog and lift its hairline with your fingers for better air circulation. The fur acts as an insulating layer that blocks heat, so exposing the skin underneath for air can help the dog cool down faster.

Take the dog's temperature. A dog with heat stroke will have a temperature of 39.5ºC or higher. Ideally, you should not take the temperature before blocking the heat source and trying to cool the animal. Moreover, take the temperature only if it does not disturb or upset the dog.
- If you are using a mercury thermometer, shake it down to below 34.4ºC.
- Lubricate the thermometer with a lubricant such as Vaseline.
- Have an assistant hold the dog's head and front of the body.
- Find anus and raise the tail for easier access.
- Carefully insert the thermometer into the anus to a depth of about 2.5 cm, but no more.
- Wait a couple of minutes for mercury thermometer or wait for the digital thermometer to sound. Then carefully remove the thermometer and look at the measurement result.
- The normal rectal temperature of a dog is 38.6ºC - 38.9ºC. If she's higher than that, then she probably has heatstroke.
- Keep checking your dog's temperature while you relieve it. If she returns to normal value at 39.5ºC, you can stop cooling the dog. However, keep her in a cool place and provide water to drink. When body temperature returns to normal, the body cooling process will continue naturally if the dog will be in a cool place.
When the dog comes to his senses, try to give him a little to drink. It's a good idea to give her a pediatric electrolyte solution, offering it every time the dog is thirsty.

Call the vet. After your dog has cooled down, call your veterinarian and ask for advice on how to deal with heatstroke in your dog. Once the rectal temperature is normal, take your dog to the vet. Be aware that even if the dog does not show signs of illness on the outside, it may have internal injuries. To make sure that everything is in order, it is best to take her to the veterinarian.

What will you need

cool place
cool water
Towels
Water or electrolyte solution to combat dehydration
Contact numbers of the veterinarian

sources

Article Information

wikiHow is a wiki, which means that many of our articles are written by multiple authors. When creating this article, 13 people worked on editing and improving it, including anonymously.

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anesthesiologist-resuscitator

What it is?

Thermalhit- this is a critical condition that develops if the animal overheats for one reason or another (in the sun, in a closed car, due to heavy physical exertion), and its body temperature rises above 40.5 ° C.

All warm-blooded animals, including dogs, cats, and humans, are able to deal with excess heat. Animals are looking for a cool place, they try to lie on the cold floor on their stomachs, "like a frog" spreading hind legs. A person who is hot sweats and thus cools down.

Dogs and cats have very few sweat glands (they are mostly located on the pads of their paws), therefore, in order to increase heat transfer, the animal has to breathe often - a lot of heat is lost with exhaled air. In addition, the heart rate increases and the vessels of the skin and mucous membranes expand to increase the release of heat from the surface of the body.

However, if there is no opportunity to go to a cool place, if for some reason breathing or blood circulation is disturbed, if it is so hot that the body, using all its capabilities, “cannot cope” with the release of excess heat, heat stroke develops. Therefore, the likelihood of heat stroke is high in dogs with short, “flattened” muzzles (bulldogs, boxers, pugs), in the elderly, pregnant, in overweight animals, with diseases of the upper respiratory tract or the lungs, or the cardiovascular system.

Any dog or cat can suffer from heat stroke if they have to move very actively in hot and humid weather, and especially if they have thick and warm coats.

The majority of patients admitted to veterinarian with heat stroke - these are animals left in a tightly closed car. Even on a non-hot day in a car in the sun, the temperature can rise to 48 ° C within 20 minutes.

Heatstroke may be suspected if the animal has very heat, shortness of breath, high heart rate, redness of mucous membranes, and known that it has overheated. The latter is very important. The fact is that similar symptoms can be observed in other diseases that occur with an increase in body temperature (fever), for example, in severe inflammatory processes, and the treatment in this case will be completely different.

If during heat stroke the animal needs to be cooled, and antipyretic drugs are ineffective and can be harmful, then with fever dangerous cool the animal without the use of antipyretics. With heat stroke, there may also be vomiting and diarrhea, impaired consciousness, convulsions. If shock develops, the temperature may drop and the mucous membranes become pale.

Very high temperature has a damaging effect on all organs of the animal, primarily the kidneys, nervous system, lungs, gastrointestinal tract. Blood clotting disorders may develop.

When the temperature rises to 43 and above, damage can become irreversible. Unfortunately, successfully cooling an affected dog to a normal temperature does not guarantee recovery. signs severe complications may appear within 3 to 5 days after suffering a heat stroke.

How to help?

If you suspect heatstroke in your pet (that is, you are sure that he is overheated!), you need to start cooling immediately and take him to the doctor urgently. To cool the animal, you need to move it to a cool place, moisten the wool cold water put cold compresses on the armpits and inner surface hips.

It is very important to be careful and stop on time! Too fast and strong cooling is no less dangerous than overheating. It is necessary to constantly monitor body temperature - not "on the nose", but with a thermometer. It is necessary for 30 minutes - 1 hour to reduce the temperature to 39.0 - 39.5, and stop cooling. Even if you managed to reduce the temperature to normal, it is necessary to show the animal to the doctor, since severe complications may develop after heat stroke.

Like most illnesses in general, heat stroke is easier to prevent than to treat. Never leave your pets in a closed car in the sun. In the heat, animals, like people, are better off limiting physical activity - shortening a walk, giving up a long trip or playing with a ball or a stick in the sun. This is especially important if your friend is at risk. No victory at the exhibition, at the competitions hunting dogs or sports competitions are not worth the health and life of the animal.

Orlova Maria Eduardovna
anesthesiologist-resuscitator

Just today, on the news, I came across a note that tells about the death of a five-year-old boy from the heat in a closed car. He stole the keys from his father, got into the car, and then could not get out of it, because. the doors were blocked. This brings to mind the depressing statistics of deaths of children and dogs from overheating in cars. What are the symptoms of overheating in dogs and what to do if the dog is overheated?

To begin with, we must always remember that dogs do not cool themselves with the entire surface of the body, as we do. Only through rapid breathing and through the sweat glands on the paws. Moreover, the speed and quality of cooling through breathing directly depends on the length of the dog's muzzle, so overheating is especially dangerous for dogs with a short muzzle (Pekingese, bulldogs, pugs). Dogs overheat quickly and cool slowly; an increase in temperature to 40 degrees Celsius leads to impaired circulation, and if the temperature rises to 43 degrees, the dog may die.

Vega is a black dog and the sun heats her even more than others. But the danger lies not only in direct sunshine. It may be cloudy outside, but warm and even hot. It's not hot for us, but for dogs. Vega begins to puff quickly on a walk when the air temperature rises to 13-15 degrees - let alone higher numbers. Of course, the dog usually sheds by the summer and sheds the undercoat, but this does not help him much to cool down. In addition, for example, this year the extreme heat began already in May, when Vega had not even begun to shed.

The hotter it is outside, the faster Vega gets tired. In the heat of the day, we no longer throw her a ball or a Frisbee, because it's too hard to run after them and move on to “ water procedures” 🙂 For our (and her) happiness, Vega loves water and sometimes it is very difficult to keep her from throwing herself headlong into the river 🙂 Swimming, in my opinion, is an ideal option for keeping a dog in shape in the summer. And there is a load, and it's cool. If you just walk with Vega, limiting him in running around and active games, she starts to fool around, becomes excitable, nervous, refuses to eat.

In the water, she is blissful 🙂 Dogs do not have sweat glands on the body, but cooling can also go through convection. However, there are subtleties here. We prefer Vega to swim after the ball rather than rushing through shallow water. This is another type of load - the fetch is thrown into shallow water with a sandy bottom and the dog runs, overcoming the resistance of the water. The thing is good, but Vega quickly becomes very hot from such running around, she drinks a lot - more precisely, she even grabs water with her mouth - and then she can not stand it and pour a puddle in the apartment. She has solid puddles 🙂 So in the heat, we still prefer to load her with swimming.

One more thing. In civilized countries such as the United States, there are special pools where you can go with dogs. In our country, only nearby rivers and lakes can be used for this purpose - and even then their banks are always full of people who want to swim, despite the very doubtful purity of the water. Last year we bathed Vega all summer, and somewhere in August she began to have constant loosening of her stool, the cause of which I could not determine in any way. Moreover, her diarrhea was of high quality, with numerous running out into the yard at night (from the tenth floor of a high-rise building) and soiling the house. Each time a hunger strike, filtrum, lactobifadol and other joys of life, the stool normalizes for a while - and again everything is new. Until they guessed to connect it with daily bathing. As soon as they stopped bathing, everything went back to normal. Apparently, by the end of summer, even in the river, the water becomes so polluted that it cannot but affect the dog's digestion. This is something to keep in mind if you regularly bathe your dog.

However, if the dog is still overheated - what does it look like?

The dog is very excited, rushes about, it is very hot, the tongue turns blue, the gait becomes unsteady, there are noticeable incoordination, increased salivation. If measures are not taken in time, excitement is replaced by apathy, the dog breathes heavily, not paying attention to anything, it may begin convulsions, vomiting. The symptoms are similar to those of people affected by sunstroke or heatstroke, nothing particularly new. The only trouble is that they need to be seen in time, because the dog cannot say anything.

As an emergency, the following activities are carried out:

Try to calm the dog with reconciliation signals.
Give cold water, but don't force it into your dog's mouth! She must drink in small sips.
You can spray the dog with cold water (or immerse it in water), move it to a cool room, make compresses from cold water and ice (only wrapped in a rag, otherwise local hypothermia is possible). You need to start cooling from the legs, then the chest and stomach, then the head and neck.
Foot massage is recommended to improve blood circulation.
Be sure to monitor the dog's body temperature - it is measured with a thermometer in the rectum. Cooling should be stopped when the temperature drops to 38.5-39 degrees. remember, that normal temperature the bodies of dogs are higher than ours and is about 38 degrees.

First aid measures should take effect in about 10 minutes. If this does not happen, you should contact your veterinarian.

But, of course, the most correct thing is to carefully monitor the condition of the dog, do not put on a narrow muzzle on it, in which it cannot open its mouth, do not drive for a long time for fetching in warm weather, do not leave it in the sun without the opportunity to go into the shade and, of course, do not leave in the car, even with open side windows. Remember that a dog is in wool - it's the same as if we started, say, playing football in the summer in a fur coat and wadded pants. Can you imagine the feeling? Heat stroke would overtake us extremely quickly 🙂

If your dog overheats and his temperature is more than 40.5°C, he may get heatstroke. First of all, this will affect circulatory system pet: the vessels will narrow or expand. When the temperature rises further, it may cause failure internal organs. If it is the brain or the heart, death will occur. If you notice the first signs of heat stroke, take action immediately.

Many owners think that heatstroke doesn't happen that often, and they're wrong. 30 minutes is enough for a pet. Run in the heat or sleep where it's too hot for more than 40 minutes. In summer, the risk is high in dogs of northern breeds, which have thick coats and those with a short muzzle.

How to prevent?

In the heat, do not let your pet off the leash, but walk with it at a moderate pace.

Let your pet have free access to cool water.

Do not leave it in the car when you go, let it be for 1-5 minutes. to the store.

If the dog lives on the street and there is no shade anywhere in the yard, make an awning for him. Let it lie there when it's hot outside.

When you take your pet with you to the beach, take a large umbrella, let him rest under it.

How do you know if your pet is overheated?

If you are at home, take your temperature when you suspect heat stroke.

Overheating symptoms:

Breathing fast;
Became sleepy;
sluggish;
Doesn't play like it used to;
Doesn't dig holes everywhere. She needs shade and coolness, and she is in the sun.

By such signs, you will understand that the dog is overheated and uncomfortable.

In the car

Both dogs and cats can get heatstroke very quickly in a closed car. The owner will approach the stall for cigarettes, mineral water at 1 m, and the pet needs to be resuscitated. Why is this happening? Dogs don't sweat, they cool their bodies through their breaths. In the heat in the car, they need a window ajar to let in fresh air. Not so much that the pet jumped out or was able to squeeze its head in, but a sufficient gap for refreshing breath. It is better not to leave the dog in the car at all, but to tie it up in the shade near the store and put cool water nearby.

It is risky to carry a pet in a car not in a carrier cage, but moves freely. When he becomes ill, he can rush around the cabin and provoke an accident. If your car does not have air conditioning, and you need to go somewhere and there is no one to leave the dog at home, it is better to refuse to travel altogether, the life of a dog is more expensive.

Comfortable conditions when the car has air conditioning, dark curtains (or special ones) on the rear windows, and you took a lot of water with you to drink.

What to do when your pet has a heat stroke?

When a pet is in the sun for a long time, in a stuffy, practically unventilated room, with high humidity in the air, he can quickly get a heat stroke. Often this happens with dogs in hot summers, especially those with a flattened muzzle. What to do when your pet has a heat stroke and is clearly ill? Do not get lost, remember our recommendations and provide assistance. And here's what you need to do:

You need to cool the pet so that its temperature drops, take ice from the freezer. Frozen meat is also suitable, lay any other products over it. At home, pour cool water into the bathroom and let it stand in it;
Move to somewhere cool and fresh air;
Drink cold water. Be sure to apply cold to the head;
Pour cool water (not ice water) over your pet. First at the withers, then along the back to the stomach. It is important to cool it under the armpits and in the groin;
Blood circulation will improve paw massage. It helps to cope with the shock after suffering a heat stroke. Ears inside should be rubbed with ice or hands moistened with cold water, a towel. As mentioned, put your pet in a tub of cool water.
In 10 minutes. You need to measure your pet's body temperature. When it becomes normal, call your veterinarian and ask what to do next;
You should not drastically cool the dog, cover it completely with ice, or put it in a bath with cold water and ice. Such a sharp change in temperature will have a bad effect on the vessels and also harm. You can not completely cover the dog with towels soaked in cold water. Dogs cool off when they breathe cool, fresh air. Otherwise, cooling is too slow.

High fever, restlessness, and disorientation are the first signs that your dog has suffered heatstroke. Unfortunately, such a critical condition without your emergency intervention can end very badly. You should know how to determine what your beloved pet needs urgent Care and how you can render it quickly and correctly. Remember that for a dog such a summer nuisance is even fraught with lethal outcome, therefore, your actions must be precise and as carefully as possible.

To begin with, let's figure out how to determine a dangerous ailment in four-legged friend. Often, even a cursory glance is enough for the owner to understand that something is wrong with the pet. With sunstroke and thermal overheating The symptoms can be quite similar, so be aware of any conditions your dog has been in before.

Signs of heat stroke in dogs

The first sign is usually anxiety, the dog becomes nervous, not understanding what exactly is happening to him.
The animal noticeably quickens breathing and shortness of breath occurs almost instantly
Appears profuse salivation and an unconscious look unusual for a dog
The heartbeat quickens, the pulse, on the contrary, is felt more weakly
The dog is disoriented and staggers a little at the slightest attempt to stand
The animal seems weak to you, you can even notice a slight trembling in its paws
The mucous membranes of the gums and eyelids acquire shades of bright red.
The temperature rises quickly enough, in some cases, convulsions, vomiting or diarrhea are possible
If the body is overloaded and help is a little late, the dog is likely to pass out. It will be better if you hurry up and provide the animal with the necessary care as soon as possible!

What to do if your dog has heat stroke?

Prolonged exposure to the sun, poorly ventilated, stuffy rooms and high humidity can kill you in just a few minutes. good health your pet. Heatstroke in animals is a fairly common phenomenon, but this is especially true for breeds with flattened muzzles. What should you do if your dog has been diagnosed with heatstroke and clearly feels bad enough? Do not get lost and be very careful, now you are required to provide needed help.

First of all, the dog should be cooled, lower its temperature with improvised means.
Immediately move the animal to a cool place, provide the dog with access to fresh air
Invite your pet to drink cold water, and put something from the freezer on his head (if you don’t have an ice towel on hand, a small bag of frozen food may well fit)
Pour cool water over the dog (ice is unnecessary in this case), start from the withers, gradually moving to the stomach, try to also cool the groin and areas armpits
To improve blood circulation, massage your pet's paws, this will help to avoid shock after heat stroke. Wipe auricles ice or something noticeably cold. If you have the opportunity and you and your dog are at home, take a bath with cool water and let your pet cool down in it a little.
Measure your dog's body temperature every 10 minutes, once it reaches acceptable levels, call your veterinarian immediately and consult him about the next steps
In the process of cooling the dog, do not overdo it! A sharp change in temperature for animals is very harmful! If you use too radical means, such methods can only harm the fragile vessels of the dog. Also do not cover the animal completely. wet towels, cooling will occur in this case unacceptably slowly

Effects of heat stroke in dogs

If the dog's body temperature reaches this will inevitably lead to the failure of the internal organs. The kidneys and liver of the animal are the first to fail, and almost immediately after them the heart and brain fail.

Usually, after a dog overheats, drowsiness, weakness and pressure drops are always observed.

Without providing the necessary assistance in time, coma or death is quite likely.

In some cases, the animal may collapse or convulsions. Get the dog as soon as possible veterinary clinic, there you will be offered injection treatment, which will begin to fight the consequences of a blow much faster.

If you do not provide the dog with proper treatment in this case, it will soon be waiting for kidney failure, disruption of the heart and periodic convulsions. Be responsible for your four-legged friend, provide him with all the conditions in order to recover.

Even on non-hot days, never lock your dog in the car, just a couple of minutes can provide a shock
Keep your dog out of the sun for a long time, give your pet water as soon as possible
IN hot weather shorten your walks physical activity and transfer training and games
It is advisable to refuse travel, exhibitions and competitions, no victory is worth the health or life of an animal
When you go to work and leave your pet at home alone, make sure that he has enough water to drink freely.
Make sure that the pet does not overwork, in the summer transfer the dog to lighter food, and always carry a drinker with water with you

Thank you for taking care of your beloved pets!