[Dailydrool] Cooling dogs

[mtnbassets at hotmail.com]

There are a couple of reasons for not using cold water or ice to cool someone - 2 or 4 legged- with heat stroke. First, if you put something very cold on the skin you will cause all the blood vessels to constrict in reaction. Then the body can't exchange the heat and cool itself and the internal temp will continue to rise. Second, as you make the skin very cold or start to drop the temperature too quickly the body will reflexively start to shiver, generating more heat and again raising the internal temp even more. 

It is critical to get to a vet (or ER for people) as soon as possible as they can then use cooled IV fluids, and in severe cases use cooled fluids to flush the stomach and in enemas to bring the core temp down. 

Sending cool drool to our hot friends (it's cool and rainy here today - 40's this morning and high will be mid 60's). 

Synthia, Bud, Zuma, Kahuna
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry