17/07/2022
Hey everyone 😁, with the heat wave 🥵☀️ arriving tomorrow (eww), here’s some important info you should all know to keep your four-legged 🐶💖🐶 family members safe and well.
Due to the potentially dangerous temperatures we sadly 😢 won’t be walking for the next couple of days, but come Wednesday we’ll be back to normal.
On days where it’s hot, but NOT dangerous, here’s a few things we do with our dogs to help keep them as cool 🧊 and comfortable 😊 as we can:
🐾🎾 We wet their chests with cool water 💦. The chest is where dogs naturally lose heat, so wetting that area well will give them some relief.
DON’T ❌ wet their backs as that water will just heat up in the 🌞.
🐾🎾 We carry plenty of water 💦 and offer it as often as we feel the dogs need it. Could be every 20 mins⌚️or so. We also pay close attention 👀 to our dogs and it’s usually obvious to us when they want a drink.
In fact, a few of our 🐶s have actually learned that water comes from the back pack, so if we’ve stopped somewhere and the bag is on the ground, they’ll go stand next to it to let us know they want a drink💧. Think that’s pretty awesome! 😎😁
Also to note, a couple of physical signs that they’re typically more in need are spittyness/drooling increases, and their panting 👅 is heavier. They’ll obviously also be more in need after playing/running round.
🐾🎾 We walk 👣 at a slower pace than usual, and will slow down even further if we can see the dogs need it.
🐾🎾 We limit playing 🤪 with any toys 🎾⚽️🧸 that cause them to exert themselves.
🐾🎾 We walk in the shade 😎 as much as we can and we’ll stop and take regular breaks, always paying attention to the 🐶s to see when they really need it and when they’re good to keep going.
During the breaks, we’ll give them some water 💦 and the bowl will sit out until we move on again so they can drink when they want 😁. We’ll also often get the dogs to sit or lie down if they aren’t doing it themselves, because some dogs sometimes have a hard time saying still, so it’s important we help them. 👍
🐾🎾 Finally we’ll go to places where we know there is water so the dogs can swim and play and lie in it, and naturally cool themselves.
Beaches🏖/rocks are obviously great so they can go in the 🌊sea 🌊, and 🌳🍃Holywell Dene🍃🌳 is another favourite 😍 location of ours. It’s so vast, mostly in the shade so it’s usually a few degrees cooler, and the 💦river💦 runs right through it so the 🐶s have plenty of opportunities to thoroughly soak themselves 😂.
Oh and one last thing. Cool mats are filled with gel and don’t need to be frozen or filled with water. They always stay cold so they could be a great investment to help keep your dogs nice and happy 😁 in the warm weather.
Thanks everyone for reading if you got this far, 😂 ###
