You’re going to the cottage, and you want to take your dog with you. The only problem is that the cottage doesn’t have air conditioning, and you know dogs don’t handle heat as well as humans. How do you keep your dog cool in any situation where you don’t have air conditioning? Here are some tips.
1. Groom Your Dog
Dogs’ fur traps heat. You can help them shed heat better if you brush them regularly. For long-haired dogs, you may even want to trim or shave their hair in order to allow them to lose heat even faster. Keep in mind that without hair, your dog can get a sunburn, which can also impact how cool they feel, never mind make them uncomfortable.
2. Limit Sun Exposure
Make sure that your dog has a spot to lay that isn’t in the sun. In your home, close the blinds. When outside, make sure your dog has a doghouse, a tree, or something that will provide shade to take shelter under. Also, be sure that your dog is not outside during the hottest part of the day.
3. Use Cooling Mats
Have you noticed that your dog tends to seek out the coolest part of the flooring to cool off? You can make this even more efficient for them by laying out an electrically powered cooling mat. These are designed especially for pets. They radiate cool, so all your dog has to do is lay down on it to feel more comfortable.
If you don’t have a cool mat and need to cool your dog down now, you can soak a towel in cold water and lay it on the floor for them.
4. Bathe Your Dog in Cool Water
Whether it is the local stream or your own bathtub, soaking your dog in cold water will help them immediately feel colder. Remember that dogs can’t sweat nearly as much as humans, and evaporation through sweat is how we keep cool. Cool water will mimic the cooling effect of sweat.
5. Ensure Access to Drinking Water
In order to keep themselves cool, dogs do sweat mildly through their paws, and they also pant through their moth. However, they need to be properly hydrated in order to use these cooling mechanisms. Ensure that your dog always has access to cool, fresh water. You can leave ice cubes in the water and place it in shade if you know that you won’t be able to refresh it for some time.
6. Ventilation
Use your fans to keep air circulating through your home. A breeze can help your dog regulate their own heat, even if it isn’t necessarily cooler air that you are blowing around. Ensure that your ceiling fans are set to spin counterclockwise. Because of the angle of the blades, this pulls air up, which pulls up heat away from the floor too.
7. Free Range
Give your dog free range to access the colder spots of your home, especially over hours as the pattern of sunlight changes.
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