Should you take dogs out in this heat at lunch

[Happynappys]

Went to a food festival today and saw about 10 dogs there in 23degree heat. To get from the car park there was a long tarmac road. The festival also had no shade or water I did see one owner with a dog bowel.

Mine both stage a sit down strike if they consider it too hot to go for a walk.

That doesn't stop them both toasting themselves for hours in the garden (yes shade and water are always available) and totally ignoring the paddling pool I have set up for them. The pond however, now that's always good for a wallow!

I’ve had dogs for thirty years, all with fur coats strangely. Spring temperatures like that are nothing.

Let me know if it’s 33°C and no shade or water, then it’s a concern. I have a Colliedor that runs around all day in higher temps than that and is totally fine with it.

Christ, this is some mollycoddling. You realise wolves exist in these climates and have done for æons, right?

I’ve got a lab puppy and she’s been in and out all day, access to water, and got the paddling pool out for her. She’s had a blast. I wouldn’t have taken her to somewhere without access to drinking water, but I didn’t feel it was excessively hot today.

Oh, so the argument is with the caveat that the owner is negligent? In that case, no, no temperature is safe because the owner cannot look after the dog.

Where on earth are you? It was 14 here!

you do you and I will keep my dog safe and looked after. No dog becomes unwell from missing a walk.

It isn't a case of whether you think it's hot or not. It's great if 23°c is chilly to you and you're tired of hearing about the heat and can't wait to crack out yge sandals, etc. but this relates to dogs specifically.

While most people are aware that extreme weather and heat waves can be dangerous, even deadly, for dogs, many will be unaware that exercising dogs in early summer temperatures as low as 21 degrees can cause heatstroke in dogs.
In some cases, heatstroke can prove fatal to dogs so it is important to know the symptoms.

This is advice you'll see echoed from many reputable sources from just a quick Google.

No dog becomes unwell from walking half an hour in room temperature weather either. I hope you never turn your heating on in the winter, since dogs have fur coats and all that.

23C isn’t hot. It really isn’t. As to whether you should take a dog out in it, that obviously depends on the dog. My lurchers would be absolutely fine. An elderly, obese black Labrador maybe less so.

Given she’s 12 think I’m doing ok but thank you

20 is my cut off. But I have golden retrievers. Even at that temp, I take them on a walk with water for swimming and trees for shade. We are lucky to have that on our doorstep. My little dog would happily go for a 10 min mooch when it's about 25, but I wouldn't be going for a serious walk with any of them over 20.

Likewise. Have had three Labs, a Porkie and a Colliedor. Neither would bat an eyelid at this temperature. Maybe if I had a Husky and insisted on a ten mile trek, I’d reconsider. But as it is, neither has ever been out and had difficulty and the Porkie was always shaved short by May.

Our old dog was adopted when we lived in a very, very hot country. She loved the heat with a passion, and wouldn’t have batted an eyelid at 23 degree heat.

Our dog before that hated anything warmer than about 18 degrees and wouldn’t have been at all comfortable in the heat.

Our current dog is a total sun worshipper if she’s relaxing, so she loves to lie out in the heat, but would get too hot if she was walking around.

It depends entirely on the breed and the dog and what precautions you take.

Also, people obviously shouldn’t even consider taking ghastly brachycephalic things like Frenchies, which have enough trouble breathing at the best of times, out in the heat. Anyone who understood that wouldn’t have Frenchies in the first place, of course…

Well my house is often 22 degrees so I don't think 23 is mad hot.

I do avoid midday/1pm and don't let him go nuts. He has pool and cool mats and shade inside.

Biggest walk in the morning but we went to the park round the corner at 4pm and had a gundog training session. All was fine.

Im in France and our local market sells a lot of live fowl. Every fuckwit with a dog likes to take their dogs past them. I despair. Unbelievable morons.

As a vet tech, I fully agree. Imagine being too hot and only being able to breathe through a straw.

23 degrees?!

It's literally this temp in winter in a lot of countries. The dogs are not all locked indoors!

I despise hot weather, 23 is not hot. 23 is a reasonably pleasant day.

In the summer it is regularly 38 or even higher with high humidity where I live. That is an actual potentially dangerous situation for dogs and humans.

Definitely not .

Try telling a Saint that 😂My dog is never walked in that heat.

Unless you're in a car with the windows up with no aircon, 23 degrees is in no way "hot." You do realise dogs live quite happily all over the world where the temperature is far, far more that 23 degrees on a regular basis?

Risk factors:
-ambient temperature

• if dog is acclimatised to warm weather

-dog age -coat type -fitness level -breathing ability: flat faced dogs, laryngeal paralysis. -obesity -temprament: daft giddy kipper who won't stop or calm and sensible?

Each situation is different. I have seen * heat stroke happen at 18 degrees outside, one case at 8pm when it was evening but still hot and I've seen it happen in the owners house. It is unpredictable, can happen extremely quickly and does kill in a horrible way.

Most cases have not been the stereotypical dog left in hot car.. more often the distraught owner "didn't think it was that hot?" "We were only out for 20 minutes" or "he is usually fine" or "she was just playing ball"

My advice is to pay close attention to the information shared by charities and vets and don't take the risk. As a previous poster said.."no dog ever died from missing a walk"

They also get sun burn, burnt paws, eat dangerous things from barbecues, swallow sand at the beach, get into scraps because the parks are full and get ill from dirty rivers....I love and dread warm weather equally.

• Works in vet world

I think 23oc is okay for most dogs to have a stroll out to a food festival.

We had 16 degrees today.

And, yes, I would take a dog out at 23 degrees. It was an issue last summer because it was too hot for furry animals and the pavements were too hot to walk on, but this was temperatures of over 30 degrees over several days.

At 23 degrees you are over reacting.