27/05/2026
🐾 A scary lesson from my own living room 🐾
Yesterday I thought I was being a good dog dad. The sun was blazing, so I set up the hose pipe for my boy to play with — he loves chasing the water stream and catching it in his mouth. Harmless fun, right?
Except it wasn't harmless.
A few hours later he went quiet. Didn't react when his dad came home — and trust me, he's usually bouncing off the walls. I put it down to the heat, carried him upstairs to the fan, and that's when it got weird. He leaked a tiny bit of wee, raced downstairs, and stopped dead on the last step to let out the longest wee I've ever seen. This is a dog who's been toilet-trained for years. I knew something was wrong.
Thankfully he bounced back to his normal self. But a friend just sent me a post about water intoxication in dogs — and I had no idea how serious it is.
Turns out drinking too much water too fast can dilute the sodium in a dog's blood, causing swelling in the brain. It can be fatal. And it doesn't just happen from swimming pools — garden hoses, sprinklers, even obsessive ball-fetching in the sea can trigger it.
Signs to watch for: • Lethargy / seeming "off" • Loss of coordination • Bloating or vomiting • Excessive urination (like my boy) • Glazed eyes or confusion • Seizures in severe cases
What to do: If you suspect it, get to a vet immediately. This is not a wait-and-see situation.
I got lucky. My dog recovered quickly. But I won't be letting him guzzle from the hose again — short play sessions, plenty of breaks, and fresh water in a bowl, not a jet stream.
Stay safe out there. The heat is dangerous in ways we don't always expect.
💙
— Alan, Southport Pet Farewells
