6 Ways To Help Your Pet Beat The Heat
It’s officially summer, bringing more beach days, backyard barbecues, outdoor time with our animals, and, for some, time off from work at home with our dogs and cats — score!
On the flip side, summer also brings higher temperatures and new risks for our canine & feline friends. Here are six tips we’ve learned in the Pupologie community to help your pet beat the heat this summer:
1. Hydration
While we can’t stress the importance of regular hydration in your pet’s diet every day, this tip is even MORE important in the summertime. Dehydration can be a real concern when the weather heats up. Dogs especially tend to pant and drink more water when temperatures rise, letting their humans know that they’re feeling the heat. Cats, however, can be much more discreet about their hydration needs. We recommend adding a hydrating meal topper to your cat’s food regularly, like bone broth or raw goat milk, and considering switching to a moisture-rich diet like canned or raw.
2. Frozen Treats & Chews
Raw frozen marrow bones and turkey necks can help take the edge off and give your dogs a few minutes of cold, refreshing, joy in the summertime. Frozen snacks like Nuggets Healthy Eats Artisan Yogurt Kefir, and The Bones & Co. Frozen Goat Whip are also super cooling snacks to feed your pets on a hot day. You can find them in the frozen aisle at our store!
Frozen treats for dogs and cats can also be a blast to make yourself! Check out this video for inspiration before your next grocery and pet store trip to make your pets something special to enjoy when it’s hot outside!
3. Create A Cave
Did anyone else build forts during summer vacation as a kid? Your pets may appreciate this idea too! Creating a designated cool, dark place, away from any direct sunlight or heat source for our animals to hang out during the day may be just what they need to get through this time of the year. Make sure your pet has access to this area daily, and that there is adequate air flow to keep them from over heating while lounging at home.
4. Ice Ice Baby
Adding ice to your dog’s water bowl is a great way to help them keep their chill all summer long. For cats? Grab an ice pack out of your freezer, wrap it in a dish towel or tshirt, and place it on the ground next to them. You can do this for dogs too —you’ll know your companion animal appreciates it when they lay on the cold ground near the ice pack or on top of the ice pack all together!
5. Feed More Cooling Foods
Based on the philosophy of food energetics and traditional Chinese medicine, foods are energetically cooling, neutral, or warming. Some signs that indicate your pet is energetically “warm” and could benefit from cooling foods are: seasonal & environmental allergies, itching, separation anxiety, excess energy, stubbornness, aggression, and consistently searching for cool places to hide out like the hardwood or tile floor. Even if you wouldn’t consider your pet a “warm” animal, cooling foods can still be used to help your dog or cat cool off on a hot day! Some examples of cooling foods include duck, whitefish, rabbit, cod, celery, banana, apple, pear, barley, cucumber, and broccoli.
6. Temperature Discernment
Finally, when temperatures heat up, we can quite literally save our pet’s lives by knowing when it’s too hot. Choose to keep your pet’s daily exercise limited to the cooler morning or evening hours, and avoid walks on pavement and trips in the car when temperatures rise. Car temperature and asphalt temperature can rise to nearly 60 degrees higher than the air temperature during the summer. If possible, we recommend leaving your pet at home while running errands in the summertime and like to remind our customers that if the asphalt is too hot for our own bare skin to touch then it is DEFINITELY too hot for our animal’s naked paw pads.
Looking for a safe, fun, and pet-friendly activity to do with your dogs this summer? Join us at the Encinitas Community Park on Sunday, August 14th, 2022 for The Pupologie Cardiff Dogs Days of Summer! Click here for more details.