Thank you. Great advice. I experienced this yesterday with my beautiful Labrador. She enjoys her walks. She takes off in to the woods and really goes for it. I didn’t really know how dangerous this could be. Quite a scare. Thankfully I had the shade and a stream near by. I’ve had dogs for years. Always learning. Great video and advice. Thank you.
Although we’re in winter where I live, this is helpful to know as we also get hot summers and we do a lot of dog sports (one of which, agility, tends to be done outside). Thankfully where we take lessons, they have a little pool the dogs can jump into in between turns to cool off, with a faucet right above it to freshen up the water with a new supply of cool water. The dogs love it! I also have a battery powered fan (from a hardware store so it’s high powered, so not a typical, weaker fan) that he loves to have on him after getting damp and I set it where he can move towards or away from it as he desires so he doesn’t get cold. For competitions, I keep adding to my supply of items I take with me to keep my dog cool. I’ll use the fan on him while he’s in his crate, but he is not wet during this time and it helps keep him comfortable and I check on him periodically. I also plan on getting a cooling coat to use separately when I have him out of the crate around the trial after a run after I’ve cooled him down with a walk, when he doesn’t need to be warmed up anymore. I love learning about what other competitors do to keep our dogs as comfortable as possible and thankfully the local agility trials tend to be in covered horse arenas. This video is also a good resource and I like checking his gums periodically to see how he’s doing! Some of us also like to start conditioning our dogs during the warmer springtime so our dogs work more effectively in the warmer weather. The competitions in the winter definitely don’t need it, but we do need to then do the opposite and make sure our dogs are comfy in things like coats and even more warmed up before a run. We don’t tend to have trials in June through August, though, as it gets far too hot and our lessons outside have very short turns between each dog to allow them to keep cooler. In the winter, they love having longer turns. 😆 It’s hard work, but we owe it to our dogs to make sure they’re comfortable in the heat to prevent heat stroke! Dock Diving is an exception in the summer, as the dogs tend to stay nice and cool. The indoor sports don’t have a problem, either.
