The Preventive Vet
Things to be aware of and tips to improve your pets (and other animal’s) cold weather safety, wherever you live.
From cuts on paws from those that break to gastrointestinal obstruction from those that get ingested, Christmas ornaments can cause a wide variety of injuries to your pets. Its this scope of injuries and their prevalence in homes this time of year that make Christmas ornaments the ‘poster child’ for Day 6 of The 12 Pet Hazards of Christmas.
Video from Nighttime Pet Safety segment on MORE Good Day Oregon show 12.8.2011.
With the winter solstice fast approaching, the importance of nighttime pet safety can’t be overstated. Each year the incidence of pets being hit (and often killed) by cars rises with the shortening of the days. Its not that such tragedies don’t occur throughout the year, because believe me they do (and with truly heartbreaking frequency too). But as the amount of daylight dwindles and the visibility on the roads and in neighborhoods drops, these often preventable emergencies begin to occur with even greater frequency.
There are three simple steps that all pet owners can (and should) take to improve their pet’s nighttime safety. These tips will not only help to keep your pets safe and out of the ER, but they will also help to save you the considerable heartbreak, inconvenience, and costs typically associated with these types of accidents too.
Here it is, installment #2 in the summer pet safety blog series…
Heat Stroke
You’ve seen it, the pet locked in a parked car on a warm day. Maybe you’ve even done it yourself? What you may not know though, is that such a situation can quickly lead to severe, expensive, and often fatal, problems for such a pet. Read on to find out why…
When a pet’s body temperature rises and stays above 104oF for even a short period of time a myriad of problems can ensue. Without going too much into the physiology and biochemistry behind it, at such temperatures the enzymes and the vital metabolic reactions they are involved in cease to operate properly - and the result is dysfunction of multiple different body systems. This dysfunction may manifest as collapse, lethargy, vomiting, diarrhea, abnormal bleeding, kidney failure, liver failure, seizures, and even death. There is good news though, and it is this… Heat Stroke is typically a completely (and easily) preventable emergency.
