Its Hot, Don't forget about your pets.

[chorizon]

Its been real hot lately. Yesterday, some friends of ours came over one of whom is a vet. She was talking shop a little bit and mentioned something she dealt with on Saturday. She said one of her clients had a 6 month old chocolate lab, which they leave outside a few hours at a time when running errands. Supposedly their backyard is mostly hardscape and has no shade. They came home after 3 hours to find the water-bowl tumped over and the dog, unfortunately, dead. She didn't go into any more detail and she sees a lot of sick animals but this one had her a little rattled. I'll definitely be more vigilant when we put our baby, Haas the Weener Dog outside. Hopefully others can learn from this as well.

[planovet]

Unfortunately it happens. People don't think.

Shade and water, shade and water...that's my mantra

[Larwyn]

I let Bruno the Wonder Dog in the house aroud 2:00pm on really hot days. Even if I am workng away from the house I will come home for lunch and let him in to cool off for a while. He has access to the crawl space under the woodshop, an insulated dog house and several shade trees as well as the patio cover. He seems to prefer the temp under the woodshop though. He has a self filling water bowl outside but has to eat inside because he will not keep the birds and squirrels out of his food dish, seems he thinks they are all his friends. I'm sure he wonders why he gets to spend more time inside on hot days but that is why he is the Wonder dog, cause he wonders about lots of things.

[S. Heisley]

Bruno is a cute dog! Love the spots on his tongue!

My dog is a definite couch spud, going out only when he has to for you-know-what or wants his half hour of "sun bathing" (which shortens to 10-15 minutes in this weather!) or for our walks. He's a lucky, spoiled dog.

[Roly Nelson]

Ah, whenever I take my 5 lb maltese to a big box store, I never leave her in the sweltering car. She goes with me, or I don't shop there. One guy told me that I couldn't enter the store with the dog in the cart, but if I went to the other enterence, there was no one there to turn me away. So, little Liza and I did our shopping without being challanged by anyone and acutally there were many folks who wanted to hold my little bundle of white fur. Bottom line, heat kills dogs, Never leave them in the car, even with the windows cracked. Acutually, you may be cited for animal cruelty, and rightly so! Long live little (or big) dogs, they don't deserve to die in a car with 140 degree heat without water.
Roly.