July 9, 2014
Hot Weather, Cool Pets Recipes
Tropical Iced Teas
Around Town
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Help Prevent a Shortage
Animal welfare agencies advise to keep pets safe during extreme heat By Shawn Clubb When it comes to taking care of your pets during hot summer weather, maybe the best advice is to treat them like you’d treat yourself. You wouldn’t think of walking very far on hot pavement with bare feet. The image of how that feels is quite vivid. Now imagine how it feels to place bare paws down on that same sidewalk. This doesn’t mean that your dog can’t still enjoy the treat of a nice walk, but there are precautions to be taken. “You have to be concerned about real hot concrete,” said Rhonda Tucker of Almost Home, a no-kill pet shelter in Wright City. “They can burn. They can get blisters. Walk them in grassy areas.” When it’s really hot outside, you can still walk your dog, but you should restrict those forays to the times around dawn and dusk. “Walk them early in the morning, late at night. Stay out of the midday temperature, the real hot times,” Tucker said. “Bring water with you. That’s important.” Tucker said there is even a cooling shirt that people can buy for their dogs to wear. One of the most important things to remember is to not leave dogs outdoors during hot weather. “When it’s a heat index of 105, they need to be supervised,” she said. “They need to go out, get their drink, do their business, go potty, and come back in.” Tucker said Almost Home gets a lot of emergency calls from concerned neighbors when dogs are left outdoors. They
refer those calls to animal control and police departments. When the owner is available, they try to talk to them and convince them to bring the dog indoors. Dogs that are tied out or penned have no place to escape, Tucker said. Even giving a dog a dog house is not acceptable, she said. Dog houses do not vent properly and the air inside can be hotter than the ambient air, and make the dog even hotter. Even a stray dog is better off than a dog left in these conditions. “Stray dogs can make themselves safe,” she said. “They can dig a bowl into the earth, get down to the clay and lay in that. It’s like a built-in air conditioner.” Even indoors, pets can overheat. Various agencies including the Humane Society of Missouri, Petfinder and the American Red Cross offer tips for keeping pets cool. These include making sure your dog has plenty of water, which will mean refilling their water bowl more than usual on a hot day; putting ice cubes in your dog’s water bowl; leaving a fan on in a place where your dog can sit in front of it; and even freezing peanut butter inside a toy such as a Kong. The Humane Society of Missouri advises that pets need well-groomed coats to help regulate their body temperature. Another thing to avoid is leaving your pet in a car — even with the air conditioning running. “On a sunny day, the temperature inside a car can skyrocket to 140 degrees in
30 minutes,” according to Bev Schofield, marketing and development coordinator for Stray Rescue of St. Louis. Tucker echoed that point. “Don’t even take dog in car with you. Don’t risk it, even with air conditioning,” she said. “You don’t know if your car is going to keep running. “If you see a dog in a car, call the police. Don’t question it. Call the police. Get them out there.” In fact, the Humane Society of Missouri advises to call their hotline at 314.647.4400 or the local police immediately, if you see a dog in distress in an See HOT WEATHER, COOL PETS page 2
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