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Dear Sadie:
I love my Basset hound to death and take him everywhere with me. I sometimes run into a store for a quick item
and leave my Fester in the car. I figure since I will only be gone for a few minutes and I leave the windows open a
little bit he will be OK. Should I be concerned with the weather being as hot as it is?
Signed, Quick Trip in Quantico
Dear Mess,
It is a good thing you are in Quantico because I can call out the FBI on you. You sure are loving your Basset hound
to death. Have you not heard that the temperature a car in this kind of beastly, ghastly, hotter-than-hell fire weather
can get well up over 100 degrees in no time making the inside of your car like an over? Your poor Fester is
festering in that heat and will suffer from a heat stroke one of these days. We dogs do not have an efficient
mechanism for handling heat stress because we do not sweat like you humans do. We pant and “sweat” from our
foot pads and nose, but that only affords some cooling, especially when the ambient air is so hot. Our internal body
temperature can rise quickly and once our internal temperature rises to 106 degrees, damage to our internal
organs starts. We can die in 20 minutes. If your poor Fester shows signs of heat exhaustion such as rapid panting,
bright red tongue, red or pale gums, thick sticky saliva, depression, weakness, dizziness, vomiting (at times with
blood), diarrhea (that would serve you right), shock, and coma, you need to get him cool and get him to a vet. Do
not cool too quickly as that could harm him too. See the following web sites for more information.
www.vetinfo.com
www.Peteducation.com
I am sure if Fester were writing to me he would want me to tell you that he would much prefer to be in a nice cool
house in a nice safe kennel with a nice episode of “The Young and the Restless” on TV waiting for you to come
home with some nice delectable treat like, hmmm, say, chicken ice cream? Now that sure beats diarrhea in your
car now, doesn’t it?
I love my Basset hound to death and take him everywhere with me. I sometimes run into a store for a quick item
and leave my Fester in the car. I figure since I will only be gone for a few minutes and I leave the windows open a
little bit he will be OK. Should I be concerned with the weather being as hot as it is?
Signed, Quick Trip in Quantico
Dear Mess,
It is a good thing you are in Quantico because I can call out the FBI on you. You sure are loving your Basset hound
to death. Have you not heard that the temperature a car in this kind of beastly, ghastly, hotter-than-hell fire weather
can get well up over 100 degrees in no time making the inside of your car like an over? Your poor Fester is
festering in that heat and will suffer from a heat stroke one of these days. We dogs do not have an efficient
mechanism for handling heat stress because we do not sweat like you humans do. We pant and “sweat” from our
foot pads and nose, but that only affords some cooling, especially when the ambient air is so hot. Our internal body
temperature can rise quickly and once our internal temperature rises to 106 degrees, damage to our internal
organs starts. We can die in 20 minutes. If your poor Fester shows signs of heat exhaustion such as rapid panting,
bright red tongue, red or pale gums, thick sticky saliva, depression, weakness, dizziness, vomiting (at times with
blood), diarrhea (that would serve you right), shock, and coma, you need to get him cool and get him to a vet. Do
not cool too quickly as that could harm him too. See the following web sites for more information.
www.vetinfo.com
www.Peteducation.com
I am sure if Fester were writing to me he would want me to tell you that he would much prefer to be in a nice cool
house in a nice safe kennel with a nice episode of “The Young and the Restless” on TV waiting for you to come
home with some nice delectable treat like, hmmm, say, chicken ice cream? Now that sure beats diarrhea in your
car now, doesn’t it?
