Forums » Smalltalk » Caring for pets in hot weather

Although the weather is quite miserable here in the Netherlands (we had 95F for a few days, now it's drearily sticking to 60F), I expect our temps will shoot up in July and August soon. Not just we suffer from the heat, but our pets also take a serious hit.

Here are some tips to help out with the most common animals, dogs and cats. These things can also be applied to other pets, like ferrets and rodents.

Remember that (relatively) big ears on any animal are usually a means of cooling down. Make the ears wet, maybe even rub an ice cube around the in- and outside of the ears. This won't work well on ferrets, since they have tiny ears for example. The smaller the animal is, the more easily it loses heat when the outside of its body is cooled down. Big dogs take a lot longer to cool off than a smaller cat!

If your pets go outdoors with you, put up a kiddie pool in a shaded area and let them play in the water if they enjoy it. It helps a lot!

That's what we do for our dogs. The Texas heat is quite horrid, especially for a little black dog and a big grey and black dog, so every summer we go out and buy a pool from Walmart for them. It's funny to watch them play in it xD the big one likes to dig the water out, so she always comes in soaking wet, and the little one just walks in and stands there or lays down. He comes in with everything from the belly down dripping and everything above that dry.