Summer pet safety tips: How to keep your dog or cat healthy in hot weather

Reviewed by Dr Louisa Lane

22nd Jun 2022

5 mins read

The photo shows a tabby cat with a red collar lying on the grass next to a Burmese Mountain Dog puppy. The sun is behind them, shining brightly.

Summary

The hot weather can play havoc with your dog or cat’s health if you’re not careful. Make sure your pet always has plenty of fresh water to drink and cool shaded areas they can sit in, to prevent dehydration and heatstroke. Consider keeping your pets indoors between 11am and 3pm when the sun is at its strongest, and you could apply pet-safe suncream to prevent sunburn and the risk of skin cancer. Finally, always supervise your dog when swimming and avoid unsafe waters.

As the sun shines and the temperatures rise, it’s no surprise that you and your pets want to spend more time outside. However, the hot weather can cause a few problems for your dog or cat if you’re not careful.

Here are some summer pet safety tips to make sure your dog or cat stays happy and healthy in the hot weather, or on holiday.

6 hot weather risks and pet summer safety tips

1. Keep your pet safe from heatstroke

One of the biggest risks to dogs and cats in hot weather is heatstroke. Severe heat-stroke can cause multiple organ failure and is a potentially fatal condition.

Learn how spot the signs of heatstroke, and find out more about this condition, in

Louisa the Vet’s blog post

To help prevent heatstroke you must make sure your dog or cat drinks plenty of water.

You can pour cool water over them to help lower their temperature, but never use cold or iced water because this can cause their body to go into shock and make them sicker. Using cold water will also cause their blood vessels to constrict, which will make them even warmer!

Another summer pet safety tip is to provide plenty of shady areas or a fan your pet can sit in front of to help cool them down.

You can find out more ways to

prevent heatstroke in dogs

and

prevent heatstroke in cats

in our blog posts.

The photo shows a brown and white tabby cat drinking clean water from a trough.

2. Prevent dehydration in dogs and cats

Dehydration is another risk to your pet’s health during hot weather. Dehydration can cause lethargy, vomiting, diarrhoea, and pain.

Severe dehydration is a life-threatening condition that can cause multiple organ failure. It’s considered a medical emergency so you must call your vet for help if you think your pet is sick.

One of the most important pet summer safety tips is to make sure your dog or cat always has a bowl full of fresh water they can drink from. Keeping your pet hydrated prevents both dehydration and heatstroke.

If you’re worried your pet isn’t drinking enough, you can feed them wet food because this contains a lot of water and will help to keep them hydrated. You could make pet-safe ice lollies too for a cooling summery treat!

3. Protect your pet from sunburn

Despite their fur, dogs and cats can suffer from sunburn. Hairless pets, pets with thin or pale fur, and pets with light-pigmented skin and noses are all more vulnerable to sunburn. Areas like your pet’s nose, ears, and belly that have less fur are also prone to sunburn.

You can use a pet-safe suncream (which contains no zinc oxide or PABA,) to cover their vulnerable areas and prevent damage to their skin which could lead to skin cancer.

You should also consider keeping your pet indoors when the sun is at its strongest (11am to 3pm in the UK). This will limit their exposure to harmful UV rays.

The photo shows a Golden Retriever racing across the golden sands of a beach towards the blue water of the sea.

4. Supervise all swimming

Although your cat isn’t likely to go swimming, your dog is.

Pet summer safety tips around water are similar to how you keep your other family members safe. These are:

Never let your pet swim unsupervised.
Don’t let them swim into too-deep water.
Be careful; strong currents are as dangerous to dogs as people.

You must also make sure they don’t drink seawater, which can cause vomiting, diarrhoea, and dehydration. Make sure you have plenty of fresh water for your dog to drink and always rinse them off with fresh water after swimming in the sea.

You should also take care when letting your dog swim in lakes and ponds. A bacteria called blue-green algae (

cyanobacteria

) grows in still and slow-moving water in hot weather, and it’s poisonous to dogs and cats.

Don’t let your pet swim in or drink from lakes/ponds that have:

Cloudy water with a blue, green, or brown tint.
Blue or green scum in or on the water.
Foamy buildup at the water’s edge.
Clumps that look like seaweed.
Green or brown flakes floating in the water.

5. Be careful around BBQs

Although everyone loves a BBQ, it’s important to remember that they pose a lot of potential dangers to your dog and cat.

Make sure your dog or cat can’t jump up near the BBQ and hot coals, as they could burn themselves. Keep sharp utensils out of reach too as they might injure themselves on them.

A lot of the food we like to grill is either very unhealthy or toxic to animals. (For example, anything marinated in garlic or salt is toxic.)

Alcohol is also poisonous to pets, so keep your drinks out of reach.

If you’re making kebabs, keep the skewers out of your pet’s reach too. Wooden kebab skewers could splinter and injure your pet’s mouth and throat if eaten, or the sharp end could pierce their gut.

If the skewers perforate their intestine, it can cause a potentially life-threatening infection called peritonitis, and your dog or cat will require surgery to treat it.

Prevention is definitely better than the cure in this case. Not only will it keep your pet safe, but if your dog or cat eats something they shouldn’t, like a kebab skewer,

it can cost around £1200-2000

to treat.

The photo shows a crossbreed dog lying on a boat, in the sunshine, wearing sunglasses.

6. Be prepared on holiday

Although a vacation isn’t a hot weather risk for your furry friend, there’s a lot to remember if you’re going on a summer holiday with your pet in tow.

If you decide to take your pet with you on holiday, make sure their vaccinations are up-to-date and that you can provide a health certificate (if you’re going abroad). It’s a good opportunity to check your pet’s microchip details are correct too.

Finally, make sure your pet insurance policy covers your pet if you travel with them.

Here at

Napo

, we cover the cost of treatment (up to £1,000 or £2,000 depending on your policy) if your pet has to visit the vet in the EU.

Not only that, we provide lots of additional cover to help keep you and your pet happy and healthy on holiday.

For example, if your pet needs emergency treatment while you’re away, we can cover unexpected accommodation and travel costs for you and your pet for up to £100 a night for 2 weeks. Or if your pet goes missing, we could help pay for changed accommodation and travel arrangements so you can focus on finding your pet.

Wherever you go this summer and whatever you get up to, following these pet summer safety tips will mean your furry friends can stay happy and healthy in the hot weather.