Chicago is currently experiencing that lovely weather phenomenon known as “Instant Phoenix”, wherein we went from 60 degrees to about 30,000 (farenheit) in two days. The heat indices today are expected to go above 100 degrees and I’m worried for my beagle.
We’ve always lived in apartments with central air and this is the first chicago summer that we don’t have it. I leave her all day while I go to work and it makes me oogy to think about her suffering. We have two fans going full blast, she has a dark room that stays a LITTLE cooler than the rest, and I fill her water bowl with cold water and ice cubes before I leave.
But she pants like CRAZY…her tongue hanging to the floor, and she just looks so uncomfortable, she doesn’t even like to go out for a walk or to do her business (she’s a little overweight).
A friend of mine said her pug DIED from over heating, that she just lay down in the middle of the living room floor and expired while they all watched. I must prevent this…MUST, I can’t handle losing li’l marge.
Is there something else I should do for her? I suspect it’ll get hotter before it cools off this year.
jarbaby It seems to me you’re doing everything reasonable. The only other suggestions I could make are to have a neighbor or relative check in on her during the day. If you come home frequently to an empty water bowl, you could try leaving her access to a toilet so she can always get water if she needs it. I hope someone can offer better suggestions.
We live in GA with 2 husky mixes we got from the pound and they hate being outside in the warm weather. Fortunately, my wife currently stays at home so taking care of them isn’t a problem.
Dogs for the most part regulate their body temperature through their tongue. If it’s hanging way down they are way too hot. The reason that she doesn’t want to walk at the end of the day is that she is exhausted since most of her energy is being used to regulate her temperature. I’m guessing that you knew this.
The fans won’t do her much good. All that they do is recirculate the already hot air. This works well for people because they sweat through their skin. Simply stated the moving air over the wet, sweaty body evaporates the sweat and removes heat. (Those who want a lecture on latent versus sensible heat and forced convection are free to email me.) Anyway, the fans shouldn’t help doggie but they won’t hurt either.
The best you can do (aside from buying a window air conditioner) is to open your windows at night when the outdoor temperature is less than the indoor temperature and close them before you leave in the morning. Be sure to close all of your drapes during the day. The reason that dogs die in cars is the radiative heat that goes through the windows from the sun. If your window coverings are sheer drapes, getting some inexpensive blackout coverings (those thick plastic ones on the roller) to put inside of your drapes will help a great deal to keep the temperature down.
I just remembered something else. They sell these bandana things for dogs that have gel packed inside. It’s that same gel stuff that goes in the plastic bags that you put in ice chests or picnic baskets. You keep it in the 'fridge overnight and tie it around their neck during the day. Any pet store should have one if not Drs. Foster and Smith is a good source for all things doggy. Keeps 'em cool and they’re really cute too.
Great. Now I’m scared to death. I have to be here until 3:30 at least.
When I come home, some of the water is gone, but the bowl isn’t dry…and our bedroom is dark with no direct sunlight (it faces the courtyard of the building), so it’s a little bit cooler.
She would never wear that bandana thing. EVER. I tried to put a Bears t-shirt on her once and she nearly took my face off.
Oh man. I don’t know anyone who can go check on her.
A beagle is already pretty short-haired, so I don’t think shaving him will help much. I’d close-clip our Bichon if we were in your shoes.
Aside from the that, hajario’s responses make a lot of sense. I’d like to add some more, but I need to ask you something, jarbaby – is the heat wave a long-term thing, or just for a few days? The duration of the wave determines how much money you’ll need to spend over time on heat-beating solutions for your beagle.
It is possible to lower the temperature of a room with a few open ice chests filled with ice. Even cheapie styrofoam ice chests can be used. Yeah, it’ll be melted by the time you get home, and you’ll have to buy a few bags of ice every day, but it will help.
If you have someone handy who can go to your apartment and replenish the ice for you early in the afternoon, that would be a huge help. If not, morning ice is better than none. Chicago is a big, spread-out place, so I’m assuming going home during lunch is out of the question for you?
Also, expanding on hajario’s gel-pack idea, perhaps you can get 8-12 of the gel-packs that are made to treat human injuries (the kind that you leave in the freezer until needed). Maybe every night, you could freeze all the gelpacks, and then the next morning, stuff them into a pillow case along with the pillow. This will give your beagle a cool place to lay for most of the day.
The gel-pack pillow idea may cost some righteous bucks upfront, but the packs can be used over & over, and will give your dog the best immediate relief.
You know the Chicago summers, unpredicatable stints of 95+ with 90% humidity for a couple days or for a couple weeks. Sometimes it doesn’t even cool off at night. For a pet these conditions can be brutal.
Its a major hijack/rant for me, but I have a real problem with people owning dogs in this city. It just isn’t a good place to have a pet which thrives on space and activity. Everyone who has a dog in this city ends up working long days, not getting home to walk the dog, and then going out at night and never playing with it. Small dogs are better, but I have too many friends with Retrievers and Labs (the most social, energetic dogs on the planet it seems) that just end up sitting there alone all day in a small apartment 5 days a week. And then to make themselves feel better about it they take the dog to the lake for 2 hours on Saturday and assume everything is fine. Its just a bad situation, seems very selfish to me. Don’t even get me started on the shit on the sidewalks. To me it just seems that 80% of the people in the city need to admit to themselves that one sacrifice they have to make to live there is that they cannot own a dog. When you decide you want a dog move to the suburbs and get a yard. End hijack.
OK, now that thats off my chest, I’d first reccommend that you look into getting a window unit for the apartment. They aren’t cheap, but small or used ones aren’t prohibitively expensive. For a couple hundred bucks (which considering that trip to Vegas should be doable) you could make your pets life much better, not to mention your own.
Yes there are probably cheaper, stop-gap measures you could take here that will get you and your pup through this hot spell, but its just a matter of time before the next one.
The idea of putting together a little ‘cool bed’ using a pillow, towels, or a old doggie bed and cold packs is a very good idea. Those things will stay frozen for the bulk of the day and if you put it together so its not too cold your dog will probably be thrilled (fondly remembering the Simpsons where Homer is putting frozen peas under his ass to stay cool on the couch).
Nevertheless, I say investing in a window A/C unit is the smart move here. I think there may even be places in the city where you can get A/Cs on the cheap as part of some government heat action plan intended to help those at risk. Also take a look at Sam’s Club, they usually have great prices on things like this during the hot season.
jarbaby I checked out that link Podkayne provided and there was a good idea for freezing a 2 liter bottle of water, wrap it in a towel and leaving that nearby for the pet to lean on to keep cool. If the water isn’t gone when you come home, I’d guess l’il marge is keeping herself cool enough to get by.
I’m thinking that when she weighs the pros and cons of sweltering heat versus that cool-yet-evil dog bed, she may just get broken of that little peckadillo.
Ominscient, I don’t quite know how to take your rant, as I’m not sure it was directed at me. Marge is a small, active dog. I take her for very long walks every day…she goes with us on trips, to restaurants, shopping. She interacts with other dogs and other people all the time. She’s very healthy and happy and I think that I’m a responsible dog owner.
And by the way, there are large breeds of dog that do NOT require space and activity. Strangely, the Irish Wolfhound (one of the biggest dogs around) is considered ideal for apartment living because they are nearly slothlike, serving more as hassocks than as pets.
I love Margaret with all of my heart and I do EVERYTHING for her, including making sure she’s cool during the day. Not all city dwellers are gone 18 hours of the day. I’m gone fromm 8:00 to 3:30, and my husband and I both make sure not to stay out late in the evenings so we can spend time with her.
I already said that I’m going to do that. I’ll probably go do it tonight. This heat wave, as I’ve also said, pounced on us, we went from 70 to 90 in two days.
bordelond, when you brought up “shaving” your dog, bells went off. But you have a Bichon, a single coated breed. That’s OK as long as you don’t go down to skin. Leave a couple of inches, so you can’t see skin. The dog’s coat acts as a “parasol”, keeping the sun off the skin. Portable shade.
For double coated breeds, “shaving” them is like pulling the insulation out of your attic so your A/C won’t have to work so hard. Not such a good idea. Brushing out the extra undercoat while they are “blowing their coat” helps, and decreases the likelyhood of hot spots.
Jarbaby, what you are doing is pretty much all you need to. Dogs run at a temperature of about 101°F. If your house stays under about 90°F, yer pup should be OK. Not real comfy, but OK. Lots of fresh water and shade (inside counts as shade) helps dogs beat the heat. Ice in the water bowl helps, too.
The fans do help. Not as much as with people who sweat to stay cool, but it helps to keep the air moving, so one room doesn’t get way-hot. And a good brush-out to “fluff up” the coat. Leaving a hot-water bottle full of ice under a blanket might help too. Gives the dog a cool place to lie down. Tile, hard wood, or linoleum are good too. The pup goes all frog-dog (spread out while laying down with the back legs splayed out behing) to suck the cool out of the floor.
The A/C you’ll be getting will be appreciated, but your dog should get through the heat just fine. Older or sickly dogs are more prone to heat stress, but a healthy dog should be OK.
(The pug prolly croaked 'cause the mooshy nose affects the efficiency of the panting. Not enough heat gets exchanged with each pant. Beagles usually don’t have this problem.)
-Rue
Hmmm, that is tough. Sure Marge wouldn’t make an exception to lay in the coolest spot in the room? Or is it one of those “doggie fears”?
Well, failing all that, another thing you can do if your lifestyle & schedule allow is to board Marge up at your veterinarian’s office during the workday. Sort of like doggie daycare. This applies only if your vet has A/C, but I can’t see them NOT having A/C in such a clinical environment.
Doing this for a couple of days is much more practical than having to do it every day for a month, of course.
I don’t know if this is practical price-wise for you or not. Where I live, my vet boards dogs for $7.50 a day. If I had to, I could drop of Snuggles before work, plunk down $7.50, and then return after work to bring Snuggles home. Snuggles would be a little antsy being away from home, but it would be worth it to me if it was my last, best resort to avoid heat trauma in my pet.
RueDeDay, Bichons are also double-coated. I just meant close-clipping them.
I tend to agree with your assessment about dogs & heat. Having lived in New Orleans most of my life (where the highs top 90 March-November with 90% humidity), and having owned dogs the whole way through, I can agree with your sub-90-degree room temperature statement. According to my own observations, most dogs can definitely get by in those kinds of conditions.
The fans recirculate the air in the apartment. If one area is relatively hot and another area is relatively cool, the fans will cause both areas to become warm. If puppy is in the coolest area and you want it to remain the coolest area you should not bring warmer air in from another area.
I agree with Omnicient’s rant but it does not seem to apply to jarbabyj. I have owned dogs my whole life though sadly my dog died a few months ago and I have yet to get a new one. My breed is the chow chow for exactly the reason stated above: they require very little exercise. For me to own a golden retriever would be grossly unfair.
Also, Rue’s comments on shaving are right on. You should never shave a chow chow, for example, no matter how hot it gets.
No, my rant wasn’t directed at you per se. There are most definately situations where dogs can be good city/apartment pets, but unfortunately it seems to me that the majority of dog owners in the city are very irresponsible. From your post its clear that you are trying to be responsible, nevertheless while certain breeds are good apartment dogs they would still be better off with more space, access to the outdoors and human attention.
I pointed out that my rant was a hijack, which was meant to imply that it doesn’t necessarily apply to the situation at hand in your OP or you.
Just gets under my skin that people seem to get pets (and seemingly dogs especially) for all the wrong reasons. The effects of these poor decisions are magnifed in the city where conditions are extreme with regards to both the dog and the neighbors and other third parties. The whole city/dog dynamic of this thread brought it to the fore.
And your post where you mentioned that you are planning on getting and A/C was made while I was composing mine, so alot of what I said was made moot.
I can’t get it right now (they are experiencing technical difficulties) but I remember this website had lots of ideas and products to help keep a dog cool -
Oh, yeah, that’s right. Sorry, I was thinking poodles. The poodle-y hair got me all confused. It’s been a while since I groomed a Bichon. Poodles are single coat, Bichons are double coat. (And Bichons Frise are not Poodles. Their hair is just similar. Very different breeds.)
[sub]But you knew that, bordelond. That’s for the people who didn’t.[/sub]
Also, yeah, that’s right. But this assumes the pup is bright enough to stay in the cool room. My idiot dog has to stay in the warmest room of the house, so she can keep an eye on the door. She’ll burst into flames before she’ll let the door out of her sight. The fans help here. (The Little Woman’s dog is smart enought to go to a cooler room, and come blasting out barking if she even thinks someone’s at the door.)
If your pup stays in the cool: no fans.
If your pup doesn’t stay in the cool: fans.
Your Milage May Vary.
And just to be a smart-ass Sure you can shave down a Chow Chow. They look just bitchin’ in a lion cut. All poofy in front and their little bald ass. Oh yeah, that’s the way to go. (Note: DO NOT do this. It makes them look like a dork. If you have a Chow in a lion cut, your dog looks like a dork.) OK, I’m done now.
-Rue
Get some of those re-freezable ice packs, set them in front of a fan, and let that circulate around the room. I would think that it would cool off more than just the ice sitting in the room. (might put the ice behind the fan rather than in front of it)
