This podcast episode emphasizes that heat stroke and heat injury in dogs are complex and not solely defined by body temperature. Host Erica Bowling explains that research, including work by Dr. Janice Baker, shows dogs can have core temperatures ranging from 104 to 108°F without adverse effects, while others may suffer at lower temperatures. Heat injury can occur in any climate, even cold weather, and after low-intensity exercise. A key insight is that a dog’s body temperature can continue to rise for 8-12 minutes after activity stops, so cooling must continue actively. Common signs of overheating include mental dullness, glazed eyes, excessive panting with a wide mouth, seeking shade, and later symptoms like staggering, vomiting, or collapse. Risk factors include sudden temperature changes, lack of acclimation, brachycephalic breeds, obesity, dehydration, and restrictive muzzles. The host shares a personal story of her dog showing delayed effects of dehydration a day after training. She advises handlers to know their dog’s normal behavior, monitor during and after exercise, and cool gradually—avoiding assumptions that water or shade alone are sufficient. Acclimation should be gradual, and air conditioning is not harmful. Early intervention is crucial to prevent progression to severe stages like seizures or coma.
(upbeat music) - Welcome to Northeast K9 Conditioning, the podcast dedicated to K9 Fitness and Business Strategies for dog owners, handlers, and trainers. I'm your host, Erica Bowling, and join us as we provide valuable insights and practical tips to enhance your dog's performance and overall wellbeing. But that's not all. We understand the challenges of running a successful K9 Fitness business, which is why we also explore proven strategies and inspiring stories of success. Our goal is to equip you with the knowledge and tools to thrive in the K9 industry. Subscribe to Northeast K9 Conditioning to never miss an episode for valuable resources and more, visit our NortheastK9Conditioning.com website and follow us on social media to connect with our thriving community of passionate dog owners. Thank you so much for joining us today and get ready to unleash your dog's potential and take your business to new heights. This is Northeast K9 Conditioning. (upbeat music) A very, very important topic today, no matter whether you're dealing with hot weather right now or it's not hot, dogs can overheat in colder weather. So don't rule this out if it's not currently, summertime where you're living, but lots of information here and that we're gonna dive right in. Also, I'm gonna reference some research studies. I'm gonna have some resources available for you. Make sure wherever you're listening to this, if you check out the additional resources or descriptions that come with this podcast, I will provide a download and it'll give you references to some of the research studies and the other additional information if you wanna read. So one of the things when it comes to dealing with heat stroke, heat injury, dogs overheating is research shows that we really look at, we have to look at things beyond just the dog's body temperature. It used to be that we would read and hear about heat stroke being defined by a certain temperature. Once a dog's body temperature, internal body temperature reaches a certain degrees, then there's a range of the dangers of heat stroke. We have seen through research and I love Dr. Janice Baker has done some great reviews of research and has written on this. She's worked with a lot of military working dogs, but she states how heat injury, it cannot be predicted or defined just by body temperature alone. There's just way too much variance between the dogs, the conditions, the body temperature that we really have to look at a variety of different things. And I will be going over some of the things to watch for and stuff. But definitely being aware of what is your dog's normal body temperature at rest? What is your dog's body temperature at work? It's helpful. But again, we need to look at more than just the body temperature. So some of the research that she reported, this is a review of research, critical review of research called rethinking heat injury in the SFO multi-purpose canine. A review of research shows that working dogs, we've had dogs with body temperatures, core body temperatures. It could range from 104 and 108 degrees Fahrenheit without having adverse effects. So you may have one dog where their body temperature might be getting to these temperatures and you're looking at heat stroke, potential injury to the dog, to the organs. And then you have other dogs that their body temperature might go really high like this. And they're performing fine, and the body temperature comes down quickly. So there is quite a range here. Of course, there is once you hit a certain temperature, no matter the dog, you will have damage to the organs and potential death. But there is a wider range in the core body temperature and where a dog may be able to work and not have adverse effects compared to what we used to report. Also, there's some misconceptions, like I said, a lot of people think it has to be hot outside. Or dogs, of course, they're going to be more susceptible. If it's hotter, if it's humid outside. But it doesn't have to be hot outside. And also, dogs don't have to be working really hard and super, you know, strainy-less activity. It doesn't necessarily mean that that's the highest risk for heat injury. There is a research study that was done in the United Kingdom. And it was showing that the UK exertional heat-related illness was occurring following relatively low intensity exercise during spring and summer. But the heat-related illness and injuries were reported year-round. So, again, your dog does not have to be working really hard or strainy-lessly to suffer from the heat. Another thing that a lot of people don't realize is that when you are training and exercising your dogs, there's research that shows that when the exercise and activity stops, there is a good chance that your dog's body temperature can continue to rise. So, there are some studies that have shown that in greyhounds that five minutes after sprinting. After sprinting, when sprinting was over, their body temperature continued to rise. There is also research study on search and rescue dogs where they were monitoring the internal body temperature of those dogs as they were searching. They looked at the body temperature before, during and after searching and work. And when the dogs were done, they were done training. They were done searching. Their body temperature continued to rise. There's also research on military working dogs. They looked at those dogs. They found that some of those dogs, the temperature was continuing to rise for eight to 12 minutes or more after exercise. So, I know that when before I knew all of this and started studying about canine fitness, I would go and walk my dog after training. And you think that when you're done training and you're off the field, you're in the shade and you're walking your dog, you think over that next 15 minutes that your dog is cooling. But if you go and you walk your dog for 10, 15 minutes and go put your dog away, put him back in the car, put him in the crate, based on research and what we're seeing, there is a good, there's a possibility that after that 10, 12 minutes of walking, your dog's body temperature is actually higher than what it was when you stopped the exercise. So, just some things to be aware of and be cautious of and be alert to, especially if you are training or working or exercising in any kind of climate, really. We also know that the body temperature, if it is suffering from the effects of the heat, can be unstable for hours to days after heat injury. Complications can arise up to four days post-insidant. I know with my own dog, one time I was training on the weekend on a Friday, Saturday, Sunday, I kept him in the shade, I kept access to water, kept him hydrated or so I thought. And he did fine over the weekend. He was performing, we were doing protection work. He was great, I saw no signs of no issues from the heat. It was within 24 hours later on Sunday and Monday, I brought him home. It was the next day that I started to notice that he wasn't as active as normal. He wasn't just racing out in the morning like he does full of energy. He just seemed a little the thargec. When I took him outside to go to the bathroom, he actually tripped on the stairs. And this was like a three year old Belgian Malinois, healthy, fit dog. And I was like, there's no reason for him to trip on the stairs. When he came back up the stairs to come into the house, he tripped again. And I was like, okay, this is not normal. And I took him immediately to the veterinarian, to the emergency room. And he was slightly dehydrated. And just slightly, the vet said it was good I brought him in, but I was already seeing the effects. I saw it, like I said, it was after 24 hours afterwards, maybe a little bit less. And we were already seeing just from slight dehydration, the effects of the heat. We did some subcutaneous fluids, 'cause he just wasn't drinking. He just wasn't replenishing those fluids that he had lost. He started feeling a lot better. Within an hour, I saw a big difference, but he wasn't really back to himself. I would say just doing his normal energy level and stuff, I was probably about a week. So what I like to tell people is, if you have a hard training day, a busy weekend, you're working in hotter weather, just because your dog seems to be doing well during that training that night, you go home, watch your dog very, very carefully, because you could see the effects. You could, the results of potential, heat injury can happen days later. So I always told people just stay alert, stay alert, and you wanna be on top of it. Some of the risk factors, so like I said, it can happen any time of year. It can happen in cooler weather, cold weather, hot weather. But some of the things to be aware of is, what is your dog already acclimated to? What is your dog? What are the temperatures your dog is used to training in? And if you have any kind of quick changes in temperature, so all of a sudden there's a heat wave coming through. Your dog's used to training in say, 60 degree Fahrenheit weather, and then you travel for competition, and now your dog's training in 70 degree weather, or your dog is used to training in a dry climate, and all of a sudden, you know, you're training in humidity. So those quick changes without the dog having a chance to adjust to the temperature can put your dog at a higher risk. And I'm gonna talk shortly about acclimating your dog. There's a lot of misconceptions around acclimating your dog to the heat, especially in the spring time, when the weather starts to warm up, and you might suddenly have a day that's warmer than normal. Those are times when your dog is at a higher risk. Sled dogs, sled dogs may be used to training and very, very, very cold weather. And then they get a heat wave in Alaska, and maybe their heat wave is 34 degrees Fahrenheit, but for that sled dog, that could be potentially,
overheating if they're used to working in a lot colder temperature. So that quick change looking at what the dog is acclimated to we're not acclimated to are things that definitely you want to be aware of. Senior dogs, young dogs, they're just not gonna be as good at just kind of having their body temperature adjust to the varying degrees. So you want to you know pay special attention to the seniors and the younger dogs. Definitely if your dog is out of shape obese, but even if your dog is just a little bit overweight has some extra you know body fat on it and doesn't have to be tremendously obese, but just you know an unfit dog or being mildly unfit they're gonna be more susceptible to it the heat compared to a dog that is very fit. So I always have trainers asking me and handlers you know what can I do what's one of the things I can do how can I help my dog train and perform better in the heat. And one of the first things I always say is make sure your dog is in excellent physical condition, excellent body weight. The more fit your dog is the better they're gonna be able to adapt and recover from the heat. Dogs with respiratory cardiac issues they can be more susceptible. The brachysophalic dogs think about the dogs with kind of the smushed noses. The dogs that those dogs will be more susceptible. Dogs that breeds that might have more of a tendency for breathing issues. These dogs can also be at a greater risk for heat injury or heat stroke. A couple other things dehydration. So even if your dog is just a little bit dehydrated they're going to be at a higher risk for heat injury. They're going to be a higher risk for overheating. So what I also tell people is if if you think your dog is dehydrated even just a little bit dehydrated if at all possible don't work your dog. Get your dog well hydrated and that will help performance. Also if you are doing work or if you need to work with your dog in a muzzle. So the muzzle can interfere with the dog's ability to cool off well especially if the muzzle you want the dog to be able to really completely open their mouth very widely. Get that tongue out of the mouth. You know really get that airflow going and so if you most of these muzzles are going to have some restriction of airflow and or the dog's ability to open the mouth more widely. And so if you can take the muzzle off when you're you know if you're in hot weather, if you're exercising, if you're in a potential risk of a dog overheating. If you do have to keep the muzzle on just be aware of this and just watch your dog very very very closely for signs of starting to overheat so you can attend to that very very quickly and not let it reach a danger point. So some of the some of the signs I think a lot of people are some of these signs are very common but there are also signs that I've seen very experienced dog trainers and handlers who misinterpret the sign. They I'll give you an example right off the bat is my own dog. I was training in French ring and protection sports. We were training in the summertime on a field. There was no shade. And my dog was just not responding to me. He was sitting in front of me. I would tell him to go into a hill position, tell him to go into a sit or stay. He just wasn't responding. He was staring at me. He was panting. He wasn't responding. My trainer got after me. He was like, oh your dog's blowing you off. Your dog's blowing you off. He's not listening to you. You're letting him get away with it. And I'm like, no, my dog is my dog is hot. He's starting to overheat. He's hot. And I knew my dog. I knew how my dog is. I know what my dog looks like when he starts to you know get hot. It could see the change in his panting. The incisive his ears are getting a bright you know bright pink. And I know for my own person experience when I was doing boxing. I was training in a boxing gym. It was in the summertime. No air conditioning. And when my boxing coach he would give me a rundown of you know do these punches. And he would get you know seven eight nine ten punches in a row. He would list them and I would have to go and do it. And suddenly as I was getting hot and and tired he would tell me what to do. And as soon as he ran through the number the punches I just stared at him. I was like I don't remember. Can you repeat that? And he repeated it again. And then as soon as he listed like the number seven or eight punch that I was supposed to do in that you know the series. I couldn't remember. I was like I what did you say? Like I was staring at him. I was focusing. I was trying to remember what he was telling me to do. And my brain it just wasn't processing it because I was really really hot. I was I was tired. I was overheating. And and it was affecting my mental alertness. So when my dog was showing me that affects on the on the training field I was like I recognize that. He's not ignoring me. He's not purposely blowing me off. My dog is hot. And so I pulled him aside, took him in the shade, you know, cooled him down, gave him water. So that's like I said I've seen it a number of times where some people are the misinterpret the signs or the dog keeps seeking shade. Right. The dog's taking off not listening, running off to the shade. And it could be you know your your dog's your dog is starting to overheat. Restlessness, agitation, really anything outside of the normal. If you know your dog well, you know how your dog normally performs. If you start seeing behaviors that are showing extra stress, anxiety, they make it more vocal, excessive panting. The tongue is really really wide scooping that big open wide scooping mouth. I've seen a lot of dogs on the training field where they will stick their nose up in the air and just this big gaping open mouth. Right. Where they're they're just kind of gasping air and you can see that whenever they're really struggling. So you see that physical change in their breathing. Glazed eyes, my dog when I was giving him, you know, the behaviors and telling him what to do. He just he just look kind of glazed over. He just didn't have that bright crisp attentive look I normally get. And you can see anything from an increase of salivation that saliva to actually a drying up. So depending on where they are in the stages of being impacted by the heat, if it starts getting, you know, really serious, you may actually see that you're not seeing that that saliva that salivation. And also what you'll see is it starts to really thicken up. So you can see kind of different variant stages. So just because you're new maybe aren't seeing a lot of saliva, it doesn't necessarily mean that your dog is not suffering. It could actually mean that you're getting into more serious effects of the heat. Like I said, the best thing is really know your dog and these things that are kind of outside the normal when you know your dog is is, you know, in a good body temperature. You can see a changing of the gums, the color of the gums to from a very, very bright red to also as it progresses getting into more serious mode. They start getting lighter in color and like a grayish color. As you start moving into more serious effects, you'll see things like dizziness, some staggering. They're just not a study on their feet, a little bit of disorientation. Line down, not wanting to move. And then as again, as you get to the more severe vomiting, diarrhea, collapse, loss of consciousness, leading to shallow breathing. And then it can actually lead to seizures and coma. Hopefully you won't ever see that. But the idea here is that when you start to see those early effects, the early signs that your dog's just starting to get over overheated, you want to get them cold off as quickly as possible. You want to delay that progressive effect and stop that and nip it in the bud without ever getting to the point where the dog is getting dizzy to where they're staggering and it starts getting more serious. One one story I always like to share also is if you're not seeing any of the signs of your dogs starting to really overheat, I've done it and I see a lot of people that you go put the dog in the shade and put them in a down or you'll put them in the baby pool and let them kind of cool off in the baby pool with the water. And just be aware that when you're putting your dog into that down position, putting them in the baby pool, if they are actually overheating or their their body is not regulated or not able to regulate the temperature properly, is you may be missing those more serious signs of the dog getting unsteadying on their feet, losing their balance, staggering. And so I've seen it where you know, dog was in the baby pool in the cold water, you think the dog is cooling off and then you go and get the dog out and the dog actually is unsteadying on its feet and the body temperature is continuing to overheat. They can overheat in the water and I've seen it where in these baby pools, we would do that in the summer time with nice cold water in the baby pool, with the sun and with multiple dogs using the water, that water got warm very, very quickly. And so so just be aware that just because they are in the water doesn't mean that they are adequately being cooled off. So if I'm putting the dog in the shade, if he's in a down position in the shade, if he's in the cool water, I like to periodically, you know, every minute or so get the dog up, stand. How responsive is he? Is he bright eyed? Is he stable on his feet? Because if not, you need to do something more drastic to get that body temperature down. So acclimating dogs to the heat. So this is something that comes up a lot. I have seen it again and again in the sport and working dog world training outside on the weekends where everybody kind of has their dogs in the shade. They have them in the cars are open. They have them in crates. They have fans on the dogs. And people will say, you know, don't put your dog in the air conditioning. The dogs need to get acclimated to the heat. And so if we keep putting [BLANK_AUDIO]
in the air conditioning, we don't keep cooling them off, like they're not going to have a chance to acclimate to the heat. The problem here, and again, I'm going to include with this in the description a download with some of the research studies that I'm referencing. The problem with this is when we talk about true acclimate, that whole acclimating to the environment, it's that physiological process, allowing a body to adapt to kind of that more extreme environmental climate changes. This happens through continuous repetitive process requiring a long period of development. It could take between 10, 20 days in animals up to 60 days where you're getting that full acclimation to the environment. So if your dog is living in a climate controlled kennel, if your dog is a house dog living indoors in the air conditioning, training on a Friday, training on a Saturday, Sunday, and getting them out in the heat two days a week and training in the heat, that is not sufficient and continuous enough and not giving them sufficient time for their bodies to acclimate to that temperature and humidity and working in the heat. Most there are situations where yeah, dogs are living in environments that they are having times, you know, it's a efficient time to acclimate. But from my experience and what I've seen with the majority of the sport dogs that I've seen training is they live in the house or, you know, they live in a climate controlled environment and they are not living in that type of environment 24/7. Most of the ones that I see, they're training, you know, a few days a week or, you know, when they're training on the weekends, it might be just a few hours. Even if they're training multiple times during the week, it might be just an hour on a Wednesday or, you know, two hours on a Saturday. That's not sufficient. And so, so that is that's a common thing that I've seen and what I like to do is if I'm going to be training outdoors, if we're in the heat and humidity, if I'm training my dog and then I have to bring them back and wait my turn to get my dog out again to train again, I want my dog to cool down as much as possible in between those training sessions. And if my dog is sitting in the shade and if he has fans blowing on him and he has water but he's panting and he's continuing to panting throughout the day, I'm risking my dog dehydrating and getting dehydrated and then being at a higher risk for heat injury. So, I've been where I've been at trials where I was competing with my dog and I got my French ring Breveille and then a few hours later, I went back and I, I trialled for my French ring one title and I did it in the same day. And it was in the summer. So, what I did was I cooled my dog off, walked him around, host him off, hydrated him. And then while we were waiting, I just cranked up the AC, I kept him nice and cool. I didn't want him sitting there panting all, you know, for hours. Got him out of the car, warmed him up again and then went back into the trial field to finish my competition. And my dog, he actually performed a lot better the second time around when I went back after he had already competed in the morning. Now, it wasn't super strenuous, you know, for the Breveille and stuff. It was your entry level for French ring for Ring Sport. But I see a lot of people that don't want to completely cool their dogs down or put the air conditioning on and the argument that they have is that they're acclimating the dog. So, I just wanted to share that. And like I said, I will include these references to these research studies for those people who want to learn more, read up on the research or share it with people who maybe might not believe. You know, I've had a lot of people in our elite canine athlete program who'll share this information and with their team, search and rescue team members or training clubs. And people will still, they won't believe them. And so they'll come and ask me for the references for the research so they can share. So, I will make those available. So, what can we do? What can we do to help our dogs is, as I already mentioned, keep them very, very well fit condition, good body condition, don't have access body fat on them. If you are in a position to give them time to acclimate to the different types of environments, do that if you can. Recognize those early signs so that you can start cooling them off before it starts to get serious. Know the risks educating yourself. Listening to this today is going to help. Share the information. Remove the muzzle when possible if you're working a dog with a muzzle. Allow frequent access to water. I'm going to say more about water in just a second here. There's a lot of misconceptions about water and cooling. Don't wait for those signs of distress, right? Monitor the body temperature. If you can, if you can, get the core body temperature. If you can, take your dog's body temperature. Know what is your dog's normal working body temperature. What does their body normally run? What is the temperature whenever they're at rest? Know if you're traveling, if you're competing, nowhere are your cooling sources. If you're training in the summer, if you're in the middle of the field, if there's no shade, if you're on the road traveling, if there is an emergency, do you know where you will immediately, where's the quickest place to go to get your dog cooled off as quickly as possible, whether it's a water source, where is the closest emergency room. You know, these are things that are important, especially if you're training outside of your normal areas. Using quick and effective methods to cool your dog, I mean, I'm going to share a few more research studies around this, but cold water is not bad for your dog. There are a lot of people that believe that, you know, don't give your dog ice water. They're at a higher risk for bloating. Don't use really cold water to cool your dog off. There is, as of this time right now, and if anybody sees research studies or updates, please let me know and we will update this. But as of right now, at the creation of this podcast, the review of research that I've done in other people, reviews of research, we don't have any kind of definitive research to say that, you know, letting your dog drink cold water is going to make your dog bloat. If your dog is thirsty, you want your dog to drink and stay hydrated. What I won't do is I won't let my dog gulp a whole bunch of water at once. And so if my dog is thirsty, if I'm training and I want to hydrate my dog in between, I will, you know, I will let him drink if he's thirsty, but I will kind of, you know, let him drink a little and pull it back and let him drink a little. I'm not going to let him gulp tons all at once. Yeah, keeping your dog hydrated, not just before, but during and after. And remember, it could be days after you could still be trying to get your dog back, you know, and get him well hydrated. If your dog, a lot of people ask him, what if your dog won't drink? What if they're excited if they're a dog that you just can't get them to drink the water, baiting the water, trying to find something to put in the water, something tasty. I know my dog, if a piece of his food drops in the water dish, like he'll drink, drink, drink, drink, drink, trying to get to that piece of food at the bottom. Find out what will entice your dog. If you feel like, you know, your, your dog's not getting sufficient water intake, there are some dogs that you do have to try to entice them. If they're really excited on, you know, if they're on the trial field, they see, you know, other dogs and they're super excited, they might not want to drink. So keeping hydrated is very, very important. Oh, going back to the cooling of the dog in between exercise, this has recently come up on some online forums, and they were kind of questioning the, again, putting the dog in the air conditioning and between training. There was a study that was conducted that compared, this was a chapter in the book, Canine Rehabilitation and Physical Therapy, a chapter by Ralph Miller. And he says that there's a study that compared dogs that were cooled with ice packs during exercise. And they were comparing it with dogs that were not cooled. So one group of dogs were cooled with ice packs and one group was not cooled with the ice packs. And they showed that the cold group, they increased their exercise performance, their performance increased. They had a lower heart rate, they had lower respiration rate, and also they had lower blood lactic levels than the non-cooled group. So the dogs that were physically cooled off in between exercise, they were performing better and they were recovering better from the exercise. So again, kind of going back to my kind of argument for in between those training sessions, we want to keep the dogs cooled down. Now, if your dog is coming out on cold muscles, warm them back up before you go back to your training and exercise and work, but cooling them down in between sessions, you know, based on research, cooling is good. So I had mentioned, I was going to tell a little bit more about hydration. So the importance of hydration, and again, the argument for if your dog is thirsty, give them water, you might want to monitor the amount they take at one time, but water is good. I like cold water, ice water, and we know that when your dog is well hydrated, that's going to help regulate body temperature. It's going to aid in cooling. Also, hydration and enhances the cognitive functions, it's helping to improve alertness and decision making in your dog. So if you need a responsive dog, they need to listen to you, they need to be alert to their environment. Hydration being well hydrated is going to help this. It also by keeping your dog hydrated, it's going to reduce fatigue. It's transporting nutrients to the muscles, it's helping to remove waste products. So hydration is really, really important. Every time I'm talking to groups of people, you know, there's always, I see it all the time people are saying, well, I, you know, I don't want to give my dog water while he's, you know, working hard, isn't that going to put him at a higher risk of bloat? No, if your dog is hot and working and is panting and your dog is thirsty, your dog is at a risk of heat injury and heat stroke.
More so than then below. Like I said, at this time, there is no definitive research connection saying that your dog is going to bloat if you're going to give him water while he's working hard. So those are some important things. Again, I will give you, make sure you check the description wherever you're listening to this. I will have a download if you wanna access some of these resources and the citations of the research that I've kind of pulled from. The other thing is submerging a dog in like an ice bath or ice water. Let's say if we have a baby pool and we have cold water, we have some ice in there. We have research studies, I'll actually, let me quote this. This is coming from the review of research from Dr. Janice Baker and her colleagues, but they were looking at a review of research and it shows that, and I'm quoting this, dogs cooled in ice water demonstrated shivering, but they cooled down as fast or faster than dogs cooled in waters of temperatures from about 59 degrees Fahrenheit, 15 degrees Celsius or higher. The thought that cold water or ice bath immersion for treatment for heat injury in dogs is detrimental has not been scientifically validated. One of the things if you don't have where you can have some nice cold water, you have a stream, a cold stream, or a hose, or say that baby pool to get the dog cooled off is having a cooler with some slushy ice water and then you could have some towels kind of help and slushing and get the dog's body cool with that nice cold ice water. And I like to do it in the baby pool, you can kind of submerge them in the water where the belly, the groin, the armpits of the dog, those areas where you have that closer, that blood flow and getting those areas nice and cool. There's, if I have to target body parts on what I'm gonna target to cool down the dog, we know kind of the pads of their feet, the belly, the groin, those armpits, those are the areas that I target if I'm doing a targeted area to cool off the dog. So if I have that cooler with that slushy ice water and I wanna get the dog wet, those are the areas that I'm gonna be hitting first. That is, these are just some of the many things that I wanted to share. And like I said, I have another podcast that I did a couple years ago on the same topic, but on this one I did wanna focus a little bit more into the research, some of the misconceptions and these things that keep floating around year after year, things that have not been validated by research. So I hope this is helpful, spread the knowledge, share the word, this can save lives. And again, we are always doing, there's always more research and new things coming up. If you happen to see some research, so solid grounded research studies that counter anything that I've shared with you today, please please reach out, let me know. You can catch us on our Northeast K9 conditioning website. That's Northeast K9, the letter K, the number nine, NortheastK9Conditioning.com. And you can email me at info, I-N-F-O, at NortheastK9Conditioning.com. And I'm always looking for the latest and new information out there. - Oh, one last thing. I forgot, we have a lot of followers who do detection work. There is some recent research where they're looking at dogs and their fitness levels and dogs working in high intensity and their ability to pick up on scent. And there is research that shows that the more fit your dog is, they're gonna be able to use their nose better, they're gonna be more accurate in their searching. So super, super important for our detection dogs, our nose work, dogs are sent work dogs, our search and rescue dogs. We need to keep them super, super fit. We need to keep them well hydrated. And the more fit they are and the more in condition that they're going to be, they're gonna be able to deal with the heat better. So if your dog is suffering from the heat, they start panting really hard sooner. We know that this is gonna affect their ability to do their scent work to be as accurate. So if you have a scent dog, scent work, nose work, search and rescue, detection dog, if you want your dog to perform better in the heat, definitely keep them bit, keep them well conditioned and keep them well hydrated and watch for those early signs of heat distress, nip it in the bed, but hydrate your dog, cool them down as quickly as possible. So thank you so much for listening. Again, check out the description, check out all of the resources. I'm gonna put some useful information here for you. I'll give a reference to my other podcast that I did a few years ago on preventing heat injury. And I will include a download for some of the articles that I used to pull together this podcast for today. So thanks so much, be sure to follow us and stay tuned. We got more information, new information coming your way. Bye bye for now.
Podcast Summary
Key Points:
Heat injury in dogs cannot be defined solely by body temperature; factors like individual variation, conditions, and fitness level matter.
Dogs can overheat in any weather, including cold, and heat injury can occur after low-intensity exercise year-round.
Body temperature often continues to rise for 8-12 minutes or more after exercise ends, so cooling strategies must be maintained.
Signs of overheating include mental dullness, glazed eyes, excessive panting, seeking shade, unsteadiness, and changes in gum color.
Risk factors include sudden temperature changes, lack of acclimation, brachycephalic breeds, obesity, dehydration, and muzzles that restrict airflow.
Acclimation to heat should be gradual; keeping dogs in air conditioning is not harmful and can aid recovery.
Post-exercise monitoring is critical, as complications can arise up to four days after a heat incident.
Summary:
This podcast episode emphasizes that heat stroke and heat injury in dogs are complex and not solely defined by body temperature. Host Erica Bowling explains that research, including work by Dr. Janice Baker, shows dogs can have core temperatures ranging from 104 to 108°F without adverse effects, while others may suffer at lower temperatures.
Heat injury can occur in any climate, even cold weather, and after low-intensity exercise. A key insight is that a dog’s body temperature can continue to rise for 8-12 minutes after activity stops, so cooling must continue actively. Common signs of overheating include mental dullness, glazed eyes, excessive panting with a wide mouth, seeking shade, and later symptoms like staggering, vomiting, or collapse.
Risk factors include sudden temperature changes, lack of acclimation, brachycephalic breeds, obesity, dehydration, and restrictive muzzles. The host shares a personal story of her dog showing delayed effects of dehydration a day after training. She advises handlers to know their dog’s normal behavior, monitor during and after exercise, and cool gradually—avoiding assumptions that water or shade alone are sufficient.
Acclimation should be gradual, and air conditioning is not harmful. Early intervention is crucial to prevent progression to severe stages like seizures or coma.
FAQs
The episode focuses on heat stroke, heat injury, and overheating in dogs, emphasizing that it can occur in any weather, not just hot conditions.
No, research shows heat injury cannot be predicted or defined just by body temperature alone due to variance between dogs, conditions, and temperatures.
Yes, studies on greyhounds, search and rescue dogs, and military working dogs show that body temperature can rise for 5 to 12 minutes or more after activity ends.
Early signs include excessive panting, wide-open mouth breathing, glazed eyes, restlessness, seeking shade, unresponsiveness, bright red gums, and increased salivation that may thicken.
Risk factors include sudden temperature changes, lack of acclimation, being senior or young, obesity, being out of shape, respiratory or cardiac issues, brachycephalic breeds, dehydration, and wearing a muzzle.
Complications can arise up to four days post-incident, and body temperature can be unstable for hours to days after heat injury.
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