Heatstroke Warning: Protect Your Pets Today!

Pet owners, beware of the dangers of heatstroke! In this Vetsplanation episode, Dr. Sugerman shares lifesaving information on preventing and treating heatstroke in pets. Understand the risks, recognize the signs, and take action to protect your pets from extreme heat. Essential listening for every pet parent! 

In this episode you will learn:

• The definition and causes of heatstroke in pets
• Risk factors for heatstroke in different pets
• Common signs and symptoms of heatstroke
• Immediate steps to take if a pet shows signs of heatstroke
• Importance of cooling pets before veterinary care
• How to diagnose heatstroke in pets
• Treatment options for pets with heatstroke
• Preventive measures to avoid heatstroke
• Fun facts about the fastest animals in different environments

Transcript

Dr. Sugerman: 0:00

Hey everybody, welcome back to Vetsplanation, where we discuss important topics related to veterinary medicine. I'm your host, Dr. Sugerman, or you can call me Suggs. And today we're talking about a really serious issue that's going to be happening now that we're getting into summertime and that pretty much all pet parents should be aware of. That's heatstroke. So let's talk about what heatstroke is first. Heatstroke is a really serious condition that can occur in pets when their body temperature rises above the normal range. So normal range really quickly is usually about 98.5 to 102.5 for our pets. And It's usually due to prolonged exposure to high temperatures or humidity, or even the fact that they just can't get rid of their heat really effectively like we can. So it's important to note that dogs and cats are particularly susceptible to heatstroke because they don't sweat like we do. They really rely on panting in order to be able to cool down. Which isn't always enough when we get into these really hot weather days. So who is at risk for heatstroke? Any animal is at risk for having heatstroke. Any animal, any age. There are some pets though that are at higher risk for heatstroke. The first group we usually talk about is called the brachycephalic pets. This usually means that these are pets who have a short muzzle or a short nose. Think about the most common ones are going to be bulldogs or Frenchies, French bulldogs, pugs, even for our cats, the Persian cats. And they get a special syndrome that's called brachycephalic syndrome. That's where the tissue in their throat actually swells, which causes them not to be able to breathe very well. Which also increases the amount of heat in their body being generated by all their cells in their body, and that can lead to death, unfortunately. Also, overweight pets and elderly pets are at risk because they have to use more of their muscles to be able to pant, which also means that they're generating more heat, the more muscles that they use. Patients who suffer from heart disease because their heart is being overworked while they're trying to get rid of all this heat. Plus dogs who have laryngeal paralysis or collapsing trachea. I've already talked about collapsing trachea in episode 6, I think. So you can go back and listen to that. This is where their airways just cannot open enough for heat to be able to escape. Also, some thick coated dogs and dark coated dogs are at high risk as well. The dark coated dogs, they absorb more of the heat because of the color of their fur, while the thick coated dogs usually have the heat trapped under all of that fur. So let's talk about how they commonly get heatstroke. The most common cause of heatstroke is going to be exposure to high temperatures. This usually happens when dogs are locked in cars, even with the windows cracked a little bit, it still heats up pretty quickly in there. Or cats who climb into the dryer without the pet parent knowing and turn it on. It can be from being outside during the summer with no shade or no water. It can also happen when our pets are exercised in a new environment that their body's just not used to yet. We in Washington had some really cold days and then suddenly it was 90 degrees one day. That's not a good time to exercise them because their body has not acclimated to that yet. Same thing for if you move or take them into a new environment on vacation or something, it actually takes about 60 days for their body to get used to that new environment. So we don't want to take them out and exercise them vigorously during those time periods. Even if it's not 100 degrees at that place, even if it's only 80 degrees and it's in a new place that dog's not used to, that can lead to heat stroke. So what are some of the signs that our pets are suffering from heat stroke? Some common clinical signs are going to be that they'll have excessive panting, they'll be drooling quite a lot, and they'll have a really rapid heart rate. So if you take their elbow and put it down towards their chest, wherever their elbow hits their chest. That's essentially where their heart is. You should be able to feel in that area and feel their heart to be able to see if it's beating really quickly. The best way to take a heartbeat is put your hand on their chest and then count for a minute. Their heart rate, depending on like how big or small your dog is. Smaller dogs tend to have a higher heart rate. Bigger dogs have a lower heart rate. So big dogs, like if it's 80, I'm not terribly surprised. But for our small dogs, they can get up to 130, 140, even 150 sometimes. And that's still going to be something that's more normal for our smaller dog. But it shouldn't be up in like the two hundreds for pretty much anybody. So if you start seeing those signs. There can be vomiting, diarrhea, and also bloody diarrhea or bloody urine too. They can be very lethargic, meaning that they're just tired,they don't want to do anything. And collapse is another big one. So if you have a thermometer, you can take their temperature rectally. A normal temperature for our pets is going to be between like 98.5 and 102.5 like I said. And he stroke typically occurs at 105, even though the first stages of heat stroke actually do happen when their temperature is normal. So don't be surprised if you see all these clinical signs, and their temperature is normal at first. It takes up until like true heat stroke is going to be at 105, but they may start showing signs before that. So what steps should you take if you suspect that your pet has had heat stroke? If your pet's showing signs of heat stroke or any other person's pet is showing signs of heat stroke, it's important to get them out of that hot environment immediately. You want to move them to some really cool or shaded area and give them access to water. You can also run cool water over them. That helps lower their body temperature as well. And It has been found that lowering their body temperature before they even get into the clinic has shown significant improvements in their outcome, and the organs are less likely to be affected. So one study showed that if the pets were cooled before coming into the hospital, there was only about 19 percent of them that died versus 49 percent that were not cooled prior to coming to the hospital. So it's a significant improvement. So you can cool them down really quickly, literally just wash them down with water very quickly, dry them off really quickly with a towel. And put them into the car and get them to the hospital. Don't put that towel over them though. Putting towels over them, even wet towels actually traps in all of that heat. Because we're trapping all the heat between their skin and that wet towel. So don't put towels over them. Just cool them down, dry them off very quickly, get them in the car. You can put the air conditioning on in there because then it makes a very cool environment and helps to cool them down as well. But it is very critical, even if you do cool them down with water, that you still seek veterinary attention as soon as possible because heat stroke can lead to very serious organ damage and death if it's not treated. And you may not see those signs initially, but if you start seeing those signs and then you bring them in, it might be too late. So definitely bring them in immediately. And how do we diagnose it? So unfortunately, this is one that it really is based off of the history that you give us. There are lots of things that can cause the body temperature to be elevated. And so we have to know, was this pet exposed to a hot environment? It's really important to be honest with us about this because everyone makes a mistake. We understand that things don't happen on purpose. Cats get put in dryers all the time because they crawl into all the clothes because it's nice and warm. You close the door, turn it on, and they get stuck in there. Dogs, you think that you're in a really nice, cool environment. You've parked by a tree thinking it's gonna be nice and shady, and unfortunately it's just not shady enough and they get heatstroke. We understand those things, we just want you to bring them in. If a pet comes in with a temperature of above 105, it's impossible for us to know is that from a fever or is this from heatstroke. There's no test that I can do to say one or the other. So we do need to know in your history what that pet was doing at that time. Because we treat fevers and hyperthermia, which means high body temperature, very differently. So we need to know. We still usually perform things like blood work and checking on how well that pet is clotting. It actually does affect the way that they clot their blood in multiple different organs. We're looking at all of those organs on that blood work as well. How is heat stroke treated in pets? So treatment for heatstroke in pets usually involves lowering the body temperature quickly with supportive care, but we also need to make sure we don't lower it too much. This goes the same for when you're at home trying to lower their body temperature. If they get up down to 103, and then you're checking it with your thermometer, then you need to stop all that cooling stuff that you're doing, because if they go too far, it actually can be detrimental the other way. So even though their body temperature normally is at 102.5 we want to stop at 103. And then we want to give them things like IV fluids to help support their body. They're already very dehydrated by the time they come in there because they've lost so much water. We want to give them oxygen therapy to help their brain because the brain can be really affected as well. And then medications that we may need are going to be things like controlling seizures or antibiotics. Just things to try to help support their body through this. And in some cases, pets do need to be hospitalized for monitoring. It depends on just how bad they were, how hot they were, what clinical signs that we're seeing. This may be that they're only in the hospital for 12 to 24 hours, making sure all their bloodwork looks okay, and we don't see any other clinical signs and sending them home. Versus this could be that we start seeing really bad clinical signs and they're in the hospital for days or a week. They may need things like plasma transfusions or blood transfusions, depending on how bad it is. And then also, they may be an oxygen for a while as well. If their brain starts to swell, then we need to bring down all that brain swelling. So it really depends on how hot they were and just like what clinical signs they have as to how long they end up being in the hospital. Alright, how do we prevent heat stroke? One, just never leaving your pet in the car unattended. We don't know how hot it gets in there. We've seen all of those videos of people who've gone into a car and sat in a car and seeing how they responded to it and seeing that it can not take very long before that car becomes extremely hot. You can avoid strenuous exercise on hot and humid days. So that way they don't overheat because they can't get rid of enough heat, giving your pet access to shade and water when they're outside. And then offering your pet like frequent water breaks if you are exercising them, going for hikes and stuff, making sure to like constantly offer them water. Avoid walks during the hottest times of the day, try to do it in the mornings when it's not so hot. And then keeping your pet indoors when there's going to be times where it's going to be really hot or really humid. As you can see, this is super important for just trying to make sure that our pets are safe and healthy and they don't get heat stroke. So if you can just remember some of those things. If it's a really hot day, don't bring them outside, keep them indoors. If it's going to be really humid, same thing. Keep them inside, keep them indoors. If you do see signs of heat stroke, like they're panting really excessively. They are really lethargic, not wanting to move. You start seeing any sort of like bloody diarrhea during that time, anything like that, cool them off. If you can, take the temperature first. It's really helpful for us to know what their temperature was in the beginning. Cool them off immediately, bring them into the hospital, and start having their blood work ran so that way we know where we are and decide if we need to keep them in the hospital for longer. Alright, so my fun animal fact for today, I thought that I would do one that's based on exercise since this is something similar for heat stroke. So I was going to talk about just the fastest animals. So the fastest land animal we probably already know is going to be the cheetah, right? It can run up to speeds of about 75 miles per hour. But, the fastest bird is going to be the peregrine falcon. My son did a whole study on this or a whole report on this. He loved the peregrine falcon. They have a diving speed of up to 242 miles per hour. Super crazy. Then the fastest animal who has horizontal flight. So this is diving speed for peregrine falcon, ones that have just horizontal flight. That's going to be the Brazilian free tailed bat, which can reach speeds up to 100 miles per hour. The sailfish and the black marlin are going to be the two fastest sea animals. They can swim up to 22 miles per hour. Luckily they're in the water, so hopefully they don't get heatstroke. Okay guys, if you have any questions. As always, feel free to email me. That's going to be all for today's episode of Vetsplanation. Thank you for listening. And if you have any questions or topics you want me to cover, please contact me. My email address is Suggs, S U G G S vetsplanationpodcast.com. So until next time, keep your pets healthy and safe. Thank you guys.