The Tack Box Podcast
The Tack Box Podcast is an informative and relaxed show that covers all aspects of dog ownership. Join AKC judge and Renowned breeder, Dale Martenson, and new enthusiast, Tyson Wald, as they discuss topics ranging from acquiring your first dog, showing, breeding, marketing puppies, and running a Kennel.
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The Tack Box Podcast
Episode 61: Summer Health | Keeping your Dog cool | Fleas and Ticks
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This episode covers summer kennel management, including climate control, travel safety, and health protocols for dogs. Tyson and Dale share practical tips for keeping dogs safe, comfortable, and healthy during hot weather and travel, with insights on kennel equipment, disease prevention, and show preparation.
Hey everybody, what's going on? Welcome to the Tack Box Podcast. We are on episode 61. 61 this week. 61. Isn't that crazy? Yeah. We're coming to you from uh good old Taxoma down here where it is warm, humid, and everything is blooming and green, and it's fantastic. And up in South Dakota, it snowed today. So I am extremely happy that I wasn't there dealing with that. Snow. Wow. Yeah, it's like the one thing that you don't want to see in May, snow. Or flee sticks, you know, all those things like that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I remember a big snowstorm on Mother's Day one year up there, but you know, this year is kind of like a week past Mother's Day, and it's still happening. So kind of crazy for those South Dakota people. Glad to be out of there. But you know, school year's winding down, summer's coming, you know, summer's just about here, it seems like. Absolutely. Time to get the pool ready. Break out the shock. Yeah, that's been another whole battle, as you know, getting the pool ready. But hey, I now can see the design on the bottom of the pool, which means it's getting clearer and things are coming around. You know, by the time my family gets here, the pool might be swimmable without eating your skin off.
SPEAKER_00There you go. There you go. This this is this these are achievable goals.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, so what's uh what's new in the Martinson world? You you haven't shown you didn't have a judging thing since your last show, you haven't shown in a week and a half. So what's going on with you?
SPEAKER_01So we're heading out tomorrow to go to Papillon Nationals. So I get to judge on Wednesday and then get home and have a couple of days at home, and then we'll leave like next Wednesday to go to Min Pin Nationals, and then uh have one day to get back home from Murfreesboro and go back up to Oklahoma City again to judge up at the Oklahoma City shows, which are some of my favorite shows. So yeah, it's it's we're gonna take this month out with a bang.
SPEAKER_02Busy end of the month you got going on there. So busy, busy. So with these nationals, then have you been on restriction for papillons then for what, six months? Something like that?
SPEAKER_01Between Papillon Min Pap, yeah. It's just like it's all the all of that stuff, you know, where you have to go back through and excuse yourself from judging before you get into it. I mean six months and all that. But so then I'll I'll for for a little while I'll be off of restriction. I'll be one less thing where I love doing nationals. I don't love the paperwork of keeping track of, you know, this month is this is the last weekend that I can do this breed before, you know, before the national. So that it's something you have to keep up with. And if it wasn't for Jane, I would be finding myself in violation all the time.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, that would be hard to handle. I mean, it's hard enough handing handling breeding and ovulation and due dates, much less, you know, not being able to judge on a certain weekend. Or it's like, how many times do people mess up birth dates entering shows and enter the wrong class? Because you're sitting there like six months, nine months, twelve months, what are we here? You know, and you mess it up a little bit. So I can imagine that far out, you know, doing a national and having to keep that in mind.
SPEAKER_01It seems to me it would be an achievable goal to have software that you could like do your entries in real time, and it would be automatically would figure the class, your eligible classes for you. It would let you put in a birthday and put in an ineligible class or something. It should tie together somehow where your information would go like, you know.
SPEAKER_02Well, it's it's definitely it's definitely available to do because there's I know there's at least one super that won't let you enter the wrong class. So they have it figured out. We'll just get everybody else to figure it out.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Get everybody on board with that. So, so this uh we you know, of course, we're coming into our our warmer season, and it's time to start kind of you know traveling with dogs, you know, through since we get into June, July, August, these are those are the more challenging times to be traveling with our dogs.
SPEAKER_02Even beyond traveling, just like general, yeah, keeping dogs in general. You know, there's there's a lot of people that don't have air conditioners that I don't know how they survive, but they just don't believe in air conditioning for some reason.
SPEAKER_01But even, you know, there's different beyond that, there's you know people down here, you know people from here.
SPEAKER_02I don't know anybody down here. You're the only person I know down here, so you know like no, but there's there's there's people, you know, like you know, that goes through summer that you just like I'm not gonna have an air conditioner. My in-laws are one of those people that don't have an air conditioner.
SPEAKER_01My parents didn't have air conditioning until I left home. And then the week I left home, they put in air conditioning and bought cable.
SPEAKER_02I was gonna say, and cable TV too, right? You know?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah. It's like going, whoa, you know, really? Like I'm gone now. It's like, oh, thank God. Hey, we're saving on the food bill. Let's go ahead and put in some AC and get some cable in here. But uh, I'll tell you that one thing, like when keeping dogs this time of year, you really have to have a set protocol and where you've got to figure out when you're gonna exercise the dogs, when they're gonna be put up, how you know, uh, you know, where you're gonna do it, and all of that stuff there, because it changes like that. And one uh what what might be what okay one day might not be okay the next. And especially in like with our breeze, breakesophalics, you know, that can be uh that can lead to a really bad problem really fast.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it can go quick, you know, and and sometimes it doesn't seem one thing I've noticed since moving down south is when you kind of you walk outside and you're just like, oh, it doesn't seem you know, it's it's nice, it just seems nice, you know, so it's it's nice and it's comfortable. And then you look at the temperature and it's like it's like 88, 89, you know, it's like those little short nosed breeds like that. Like we, I don't think necessarily recognize how hot it actually can be for a breed that has a coat, short nose, you know, it gets hot for them. And then if you're putting them out on concrete or gravel that's in the sun, you know, we have opportunities to burn feet, anything like that. So let's talk about certain things and how we can have a protocol to make sure that we're keeping our dogs cool, safe, healthy coming into these summer's months. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. So we have like a little separate type of time, you know, time the time of year, because of course we run some sort of climate control all year round, but in the summertime, the air conditioning never really shuts off. And we have we have both central air and then supportive window units. So should the central air go out, the the window units would would maintain temperature. Uh, and you know, or vice versa. So kind of like we don't have all your eggs in one basket, in case that in case you should have that. And then of course, you need to have your your power plan. Like, what's gonna happen if we lose power? You are we talking about generators, you know, like we invested in whole house generators for the kennel, you know, that are are propane operated, but you know, those type of things where should you lose power, you can maintain a safe environment for the dogs. One thing that that is so crucially important, and like every Monday we clean every air conditioner. It's it you don't really think about it in your house. I mean, you change the filter, sure, but something about when you've got animals, you know, even clean animals and all that, there is enough hair and dander and just stuff in there. You'll find you'll get stuff out. I mean, we probably do filters twice a week and then probably go ahead and then just like uh Clorox spray down the the front of the coils and take an old slicker brush and clean it to make sure that stays really clean. And if you'll put that little extra time into your units, they you'll get a way, way longer life out of those units. Oh, for sure.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. And that's like uh with a lot of different things is you keep you take care of them and keep them, you know, you keep up on the maintenance and the functionality and they can last a long time. Yeah. And and I don't think that really like situations like this, you know, when we're talking power plants, I don't think that really matters on necessarily an area of the country because every area of the country gets warm enough in the in the summertime that we need to make sure that our AC is functional for our animals. You know, if you have a power outage or I guess blackouts happens in bigger areas where you have rolling blackouts and and things like that, you need to be able to make sure you keep your animals cool. And then you have the other aspects of the country, you know, where you have to keep them warm in the winter, you know, in colder areas. But it's a lot of cool, right?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah. Warm is easier, yeah. Yeah. And one thing that I really like that I've utilize is the freestanding room air conditioners that you can just vent out. And uh those are fantastic. I like those a lot. You know, got a couple of them because you can get them out into the middle of the room and they're easy to clean, and uh I think they're they're pretty effective. You know, those, you know, they're not terribly expensive. And I've been averaging about three years, uh four years on them, you know, and they're still good, but if I once I notice the effectiveness, like they're they're starting to not work as well. If I get any kind of a anything with uh with an AC unit, I I I pitch it, donate it, whatever, and get a new one because you can't go out with animals. You just can't, that's not it's not a it's not okay.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and that's one of those things too, where if you have a separate kennel building, say you're not raising your dogs in your house and you have a garage set up or a separate building where it's not controlled with your normal house thermostat or it's not in an area that you walk through multiple times a day. If it's 90 degrees outside, you know, what happens if your air conditioner stops working? You know, you maybe you go to the kennel and you do chores in the morning and the air conditioner is fine, but stops working midday and you're not coming back out until the night. Like a lot can happen in a few hours of an air conditioner not working. So I think it's it's it's imperative to have you know either something like a some sort of thermostat in there or temperature that's like goes to your phone or alerts you if it gets too hot in there, or there's a backup plan of you know a secondary system to where if it gets too hot, uh, you know, like one of the things I thought about in my area is just like having a secondary air conditioner that's set like five degrees warmer than the other one, so they're not necessarily both running at the same time. But if the one goes out, then the secondary one, you know, if the building gets too warm, secondary one kicks on to keep that going. Absolutely. A lot of those things that you don't think about that.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. On multiple circuits in case you blow a breaker or something like that, you know, that just that little safety net. And then that's that also kind of like uh goes along with the there's there's things you can do to, you know, to make your facilities a little bit, you know, like if you have covers over your over your exercise area, you know, this is something we did is we did spray foam insulation on the inside of the of the covers on the tops. That probably knocked 10 degrees off of off of the temperature underneath, just having that, you know, instead of just sheet metal having it insulated underneath, man, that does that's great stuff. You know, making sure that you make sure that there's water available. We generally, you know, that's something that you can't, you know, shade, water, you know, all of that kind of stuff. Make sure your power is sourced. And then one thing you kind of need to do is look at your dogs every year. Uh because uh, you know, what they might have been okay with this year, they may not be okay with next year. Like, you know, my my uh Pyrenees that moved in uh three years ago, uh you know, he come, he he has started now. I find him in sleeping under the desk all the time during the heat of the day. He never used to do that. I think the heat is bothering him more now this year than it did last year. And because he's an older dog. Next year, I may have to clip him off. I don't know. We'll see, because see if he can if he can maintain the, you know, if he can take it, you know, because what they can take one year, they might not be able to take the next year. So, you know, you kind of look at him and go, well, you know, put them out this time. And what we do is kind of like the reverse daylight savings time. You know, in the winter months, we we put them, you know, we put them out a little later, we let it warm up a little bit. In the summer months, we put them out a little earlier, but you know, so they get a little more exercise before it heats up. But uh you're keeping in mind, you know, and we'll start starting with summer haircuts on dogs that you know that don't need to be shown or whatever. When you're where you're living somewhere that's warm or you have multiple dogs taking care of, a summer haircut is kind of it, it makes it more effective for flea and tick prevention and it keeps the dogs cooler. You kind of can keep a better eye on where how their skin is doing with the heat, so they won't be getting a hot spot or a sore. All of those things you can kind of do, you know, that just make taking care of them a little easier.
SPEAKER_02Oh, a hundred percent. Uh, what about things like traveling with them? You know, I know obviously it's like, you know, they're gonna need water and things, but sometimes you think, you know, like you're you're in a vehicle and it's like say you have them in the kennel in the back, but you know, and you run an AC and everything and you're comfortable, but the sun's peering in the window onto their kennel, like a lot of times people don't think about that type of stuff. Like, how do we keep them cool in traveling?
SPEAKER_01So, yeah, you have to really take a long hard look at what kind of kennels you're gonna travel them with in the summer, what kind of breed you have, even to the point where I mean this may have kind of sounds old west trail, but like if I'm if I'm traveling far with a a bunch of flat-faced dogs, I'd rather do it super l either late or early. I'd rather not be driving in the heat of the day, because if you if you have a problem, you've got a problem. You know, you have a problem and it's in the, you know, in the you know, in the evening or in the early morning hours, you don't have as big a problem. But you know, sometimes I'll go ahead and I'll I'll use like a wire floor in my crates where I can slide an ice pack underneath, you know, where they have you know they have some you know ice up there. Make sure that that they're you know, that your windows are either have some tinting or something where you're getting all the ventilation you can get, but you don't need the sun beating down in them. You want to make sure that they're that because sometimes when we start packing our cars and then we start just shoving shit in, you know, it's kind of you know, kind of like that grocery store filling the car, just the fast, you know, you have to leave space around those crates where they are getting airflow and be mindful of the vents that they don't get vents don't get covered over, all that stuff. And it's really nice if you put them where you can see them in the rearview mirror if you're traveling alone, where you can see back there and see how those dogs are doing, because you don't want anything to happen. I mean, stuff like that happens every year. Something, you know, things that you do all along throughout the year, and then this time of year, it's not okay. Like, and just a little minor tweak, and all of a sudden it got too hot. So kind of keeping those things in mind, a little more careful in the packing. You know, maybe, and I know a lot of people like to travel with crates. If you're not going to use a wire crate in traveling, which I do, if you have a problem with traveling with wire crates, please write Tyson and explain to him how dangerous that is and how that shouldn't be done. Personally, I do travel with wire crates because I like the ventilation. I like to be able to see the dogs. But if you don't use a wire crate, use a little bit larger crate. You know, leave use a big half again size bigger, you know, just so that there's more ventilation. Because that's one thing, animals will heat up an area fast. So making sure that you have that make you know, and kind of really evaluate those dogs. Are they breathers? Are they are they, you know, because people no one really thinks of their animals as getting older or if they're a little fat or whatever, you know, it's like they're like, well, they always go out and run for this, you know. Not this year, you know, maybe this year, no. So you just have to kind of really take that honest art evaluation. And when you do those summertime travels where it's gonna start creeping up close to the triple digits, gotta be mindful. Gotta make a plan. Gotta have a plan in place how to get those animals there safely. Got to be traveling with water. Those when you get your vaccines, this is super cheap, and so probably embarrassing, Jane. When you get the vaccines, you get those little polar, those little freezer packs, save them for in the save them for in the summer, and you can stick them, stick them in um under the beds in the crates. You know, I mean they're they're great. You know, just throw them at, throw them at, you know, and then you can throw them away later. Or, you know, if you get to the hotel, you can chuck them in there. You know, all of that kind of stuff. You know, those little battery pack fans, great. You know, all of that. Don't take as many dogs, don't travel in the heat of the day. Try not to do super stupid long hard trips by yourself. You know, see if you have, you know, have a have a plan in place.
SPEAKER_02Is that kind of like the same same thing for shows? You know, there's there's a lot of different show venues, and and you know, there's been some that I've been to, and it's just like this show is out in a barn and it's in mid-July and it's hot. So how do we keep them cool but still keep their coat ready for the show ring?
SPEAKER_01So you're gonna have to really first you're gonna have to evaluate do I need to go to that show? Is that show okay for my dog?
SPEAKER_02And if you have a long hair breed, it's probably gonna make your dog blow coat, most likely.
SPEAKER_01Well, it could. It could. So, so you have to first uh and then you can always turn around and say, I'm gonna enter, but if but if I pull it up online and it looks like it's gonna be too hot, I might go ahead and blow that weekend off and say, No, I'm not gonna do that. You know, part of the whole thing is learning to learning to uh show another day, live to fight another day, you know? Yeah so you know, look really close and then figure out uh where you know where you're going, what kind of you know, are the is there what kind of shade, what kind of electricity, you know, of course RV stuff. I love RVs, had a million RVs, love them, you know, all of that stuff, you know. Do you have a if you're gonna be doing a lot of shows, maybe you want to invest in a rooftop air for your van, a little insulation in that van goes a long ways. You just have to kind of make plans, you know, to make to have to have a safe, a safe thing for a safe um environment for your dogs. And then get them in and out, and then look at those dogs pretty hard and go, is this some dogs can be a little anxious and they can get hot a little faster. Well, that that might not be the dog to go out in that hot summer show. Might go ahead and you know, save him for an indoor venue where it's gonna be where it's gonna be more temperature control. You know, all of that kind of comes in there. Now, like in our neck of the woods we give like um heartworm and fleet prevention most of the year, but not all of the year. Um because you know, we only have we're kind of on that dividing line where you could give it, you you know, you might not need it, but you know, like through the summer months we do, we do that for you know for that, and then um for you know using the ivermectin for the heartworm and using the you know frontline plus for fleas and ticks. We m where we're located, we don't get fleas, we get ticks. And usually, usually come about sometime in June. Someone will come up and jump up on you and they'll have a big tick right before between their eyes. And they're like, well, like wow, wow, it's springtime, you know. Pop off their tick, you know. It's time, you know. So you just have to kind of keep a a watch for that, you know. And then you know, you can treat through through the time of the year when when that's in thing, you know.
SPEAKER_02I can I mean you could get some guineas and you know they're supposed to eat the ticks. I got a couple you can have.
SPEAKER_01That's an amazing offer. I try to run my neighbors over a couple times a week, you know, they because they just stand in the middle of the road and look at you like going, I'm here, I'm a guinea. What are you gonna do? Yeah, it's like going, just want to just and I don't know, they're everywhere, they're never on your own damn property. How are they eating your ticks? They're getting everybody else's, you know. Yeah, I don't know if I buy the guinea theory. I'm not sure. I'm not I'm not convinced on that one.
SPEAKER_02Well, I have two that I can't get rid of, so if I don't have ticks this year, I might buy, I might buy the theory. But uh, you know, so coming from South Dakota, where our summer month is super short, our summer window is like June, July, August. And anything outside of that is like cold and you don't really have to worry about fleas, ticks, or even heartworms really too terribly much, maybe for a couple months, but and then you move south and it's kind of like that season expands and grows. And so what does that protocol kind of look like, you know, for for you and your kennel with uh heartworm medication, flea, and tick prevention? Is it like a once-a-month thing? Is this like every month I do this year-round?
SPEAKER_01Or like yeah. Well, so so I generally do it about about seven months a year that we have that we give it, you know, that does have have it say stays on there about seven months a year that we're weather where you can have that, you know. And depending on the temperature, though, I mean, you know, so I mean, if you're cruising on into April and you've got, you know, super cold and all that, well, then okay, you maybe aren't you're not gonna be worried about mosquitoes and stuff. But you start you might be in March and you might it start right up. So, you know, then you don't know. But you just kind of have to kind of read the room, see whether you need to bring an umbrella or not. The uh well, I can tell you one thing that the the protocol now with the with the uh products we have are so good. There's really no reason to have fleas or ticks anymore. I mean, it's just because it's so easy, you know, they have monthly and then they have like this stuff like brevecto, which is every three months. And uh and you just like because it doesn't take much, and once you get it started, then you have to kind of like you have to treat all the dogs, and then you have to perimeter treat. Because just because you treated the dogs, if the perimeter has has uh parasites, they're still getting on to the dogs. They're dying, and not you know, at first fast, and then later a little less fast, and then a little less fast, and then you but but you have but they are still dying. With our if like if you get down towards Houston, that's that's 12 months a year, right? Those those fleas die of old age, you know, they're pulling Social Security, you know. I mean, there's you know, there's no weather knocking them off. Uh here, like I say, we're just right on the border, you know, uh taxoma, you know, we get a little bit of cold weather, a little bit of freeze that knocks them back a little bit. But um, you know, just a good topical treatment, you know, and then monthly with that. Uh I do ivermectin. You can do there's lots of different kinds of uh uh heart wound preventative, it's real good. You know, some people just leave them on all year round. It does, it does surely does not gonna hurt them. You know, the um uh but yeah, I think I think I believe it was like one CC of ivermectin to uh cc of sterile dilute is like then of that diluted it's like one cc per 55 pounds, something like that. So it's fairly inexpensive, you know, to give.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and that's something I mean you can go pick that up at tractor supply, you know. Like Yeah, yeah. And even now, like, you know, like frontline and and a lot of that stuff is like so readily available, it's like Walmart, you can get it at Walmart, you know, or tractor supply. Uh, you know, it's like and it's not it's not that expensive. I mean, it's an expense, but you know, if you stay on top of it, it's not that expensive to to maintain.
SPEAKER_01On show dogs, like a coated breed, like with say uh let's say a chin, instead of putting that the drops on the top of the back coat on their back, it could discolor that a little bit, could make a little hair breakage. You might want to flip them over and put it on their breastbone. You know, still effective, you know, but not a scene, you know, to protect that that guard hair, that top coat. But yeah, for sure, you know, those those products that we have now, so good. I even use like on on puppies, I'll put a a drop or two in their ears, you know, um weaning and stuff to you know make sure that they're not, you know, that don't get any like mites or anything like that. All that stuff is just prevention. Prevention is the is the key on that. Stay ahead of it, prevent it. You know, there is a brevecto, three months, more expensive, but three months.
SPEAKER_02So, I mean, you know, is brevecto vet only? I think brevecto might be a good one.
SPEAKER_01I think it is. I think it is, I believe so.
SPEAKER_02But, you know, you live in an area where you have that, yeah. I'm sure a visit to your vet, and you know, not a big deal.
SPEAKER_01You're gonna go in the vet anyway, yeah. Go ahead. Score a little brevecto and you're you're kind of set up, you're set up for the thing, you know.
SPEAKER_02And as far as like like nursing moms and and puppies, is like does that affect mom's milk? Do anything you gotta worry about with any of that, or say you put it on a puppy, like and mom cleaning the puppy, you know, does any of that really play into it or have an effect on anything?
SPEAKER_00All right, so let's go back.
SPEAKER_01I've never had a problem using it on a pregnant bitch or a wrist jump breeding. I've never had an issue with that, you know. And you will have an issue with um fleas and ticks. You get fleas going, you're gonna get tapeworm, you're gonna get anemia, you're gonna get skin, you're gonna tear up their skin, all of that's bad. So, you know, none of that's beneficial to a to a nursing or pregnant bitch. With the puppies, you know, I I say I I've just done a drop or two here or there. If there's a chance that's like a chance that mom's going outside and she picked up um she, you know, picked up uh a f a flea or something like that, you can put a drop or two on them, but it's not gonna hurt them. The moms generally are only going to be cleaning their butt and stuff, so try not to put it on their butt. And I don't think you'll have any problem with the mom licking it. You know, put it put it in their ears, yeah, that type of thing.
SPEAKER_02And I would imagine if she did lick it. I mean, I got some of that on me the other day, and I was like, God, this stuff's disgusting smelling, you know. I was like, Yeah. She won't do it too much. She'd be like, Yeah, yeah, yeah, you know, I don't want anything to do with that.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Yeah. All all stuff that all just good stummer maintenance stuff. And if you're gonna go to that show out in the out in the dirt barn at the rodeo arena, and it's three weeks into your treatment, you might want to go ahead and be early that month. Go ahead and hit them, hit them three weeks, you know, because you might have a a stronger exposure going into that place there.
SPEAKER_02What about something like Bordotella? Is that like is that more prominent in going to the shows in these hot summer months, or does the weather not really affect that too much?
SPEAKER_01100% affects it. Absolutely. So summer too before you go, you know, like absolutely. You bet you will you will not be regretting that because it's not gonna be near as big a pain in the butt or as expensive as when you've gone ahead and bring back kennel cloth from a dog show because you get a bunch of dogs in like a uh an air-conditioned building, and then we're gonna take them outside to go and then bring them back in, and you get one or two coughing, and man, they'll go through that that place like a hot knife through butter. And it's funny because some dogs will have a pretty good case of kennel cough before they actually start to physically cough, you know, and other dogs will like, you know, like our dogs, if you look at them hard, they'll cough. You know, it's you know, chin, like, you know, you know, because they've got it's all all there, you know. They have there there's not a whole ton of breathing apparatus going on, so it doesn't take a lot to get them to cough or sneeze or something like that. But gosh, you can pretty easily kennel cough. And I've had dogs cough up to six months. And yeah, so the borderella money well spent. Well spent, you know, and even like at the shows, when you got your crates there, because you're good if you go into the show group show building and you got your wire crates there uh that you've been traveling with, and you might want to throw some sheets over them. So the person behind you who doesn't follow the tack box, who didn't give their dog Bordatella, that you know, all that, that now their dog is coughing, and you know, every anything you can do to keep it from going to your dogs. I mean, for a while they used to talk about, oh, like, you know, that maybe the judges should bleach after they touch each dog. Well, a little bit is airborne, folks. You know, you can go ahead and spray us down with bleach in between each dog, and that still we're all breathing the same air, you know. That's probably if we're not in a hazmat suit, it's probably not gonna totally be a lot of it, you know. But just try to space, you know, get your immunity high, and you know, try to try to do those kind of things. Those are just good summer tips to keep from having to deal with that.
SPEAKER_02I think some of the things this summer that people don't realize, especially with the short-nosed breeds, you know, is like when we think summer, when we think nicer weather, you know, especially if you're in a winter state and it's like spring and summer coming, we want to get out and we want to walk. We want to take our dogs on walks, we want to do this. And it's like there is a point in the summer where it becomes too much to take your dog out on a walk, especially the short, flat-faced racy sapalic breeds, like they can't handle it. And a lot of times we don't think about it and and we want to get out on a walk and we want to exercise them and we think we're doing so good, and then before you know it, they're panting and dying from heat stroke and you know, like so yeah, it's kind of like our running.
SPEAKER_01You know, we in the summer months, you know, the the six o'clock meeting sometimes gets pushed to a five o'clock meeting. So we'll go ahead and have, you know, because we don't want to be out there running when they you know in the heat of the day, you know. So just you know, use a little common sense. Just uh adjust your time, you know, adjust your time, make plan accordingly, you know, that you need to do it. And the other thing is, I have some really good little collapsible water bowls that are bowl flat and you can pop them out.
SPEAKER_02I've probably won ten of them at dog shows before, you know, they're all over the place.
SPEAKER_01Right right next to your here's a poop sack bet, you know, collector thing that you can clip to your belt so you can always pick up your poop. Yeah, bring your little collapsible water bottle bowl and uh you know, you know, be packing water for everybody. It's just a good thing. One thing I've have noticed, like if a dog gets too hot, uh, you know, and it can happen. It just it happens to everybody. Alcohol in the pads, really good thing to lower the temperature. I mean it's fast. You know, ice, you know, lower the temperature, you know. All of those things are you know really good, you know, but like with with our breeds, if you know, when they when the tongue comes out, the dog goes in is our kind of our little our little uh acronym for a healthy summer. If they're if they're panting, back in. Yeah. That that's that's that's how we base it on.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and there's sometimes I'll be doing chores in the morning and dogs will be out and and it's like they just start wandering back in, you know, like like they're telling you like they they they've had enough outside. It's it's getting too warm. They want to be back in on the on the colder floor, you know, from the kennel. So it's like they're kind of telling you too. They're not just gonna generally they're just not gonna lay out there and die of a heat stroke. They're gonna want back in, but it's your responsibility to make sure that they can get back in, you know, like sure. Don't leave them outside in the summer.
SPEAKER_01And this uh this time of year, one thing that's really good for um, you know, and for your for your kennel and for your you know, just for the for the temperature and the air quality, dehumidifiers. Love them. You know, you can get them where they dr automatically drain outside or you can you know you know, click in just dump it. But man, when it's like when the when it's hot and and humid, the temperature is like squared. So keeping that humidity down gonna keep your air quality better, gonna keep down respiratory infections, and it's gonna make it smell a whole lot better.
SPEAKER_02It's just better for your kennel, I mean, and your house. It's better for everything, you know, humidity on indoors destroys everything. So Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I mean keep you know, keeps your keeps mold from you know going on that. You know, it's like I got some white plastic fence that I'm having to bleach right now because it's starting to get the greenies on it and stuff because it's you know, mowing and and the uh the hot the hot, moist, wet, you know, morning stuff.
SPEAKER_02So yeah, I know somebody that had like a a washer, leak water, and the humidity is like it doesn't ever really let it dry, and then you kind of get mold going, you know, and then you're replacing wall and all that stuff, and it's like that's not good for the humans or the dogs, you know. It's it's one of those where it's like the humidity can really uh mess things up in their coat, you know, their coat gets all frizzy, their coat and on like a chin, you know, or a long-haired breed, it's like the humidity destroys that.
SPEAKER_01I'm sure they're gonna mat more. I mean, yeah, dry, dry heat and stuff, you know, because that's one thing we have a fair amount of humidity here. Like if you go 500 miles west out there, they're running those, what they call a swamp cooler, which is just basically a fan with a water pump going through there circulating, you know, because it's so dry and there's no moisture in there, so but that's not our problem. We we've got the moisture and plus, you know, so that's something we kind of work on. So dehumidifiers, good investment.
SPEAKER_02Oh, a hundred percent. Yeah, that's that's one of the top of the list things for for summertime for sure. It helps with the it's just I don't know, see smells. We've talked about that before and like cleanliness, like it helps keep the smell down. Um it'll help with with a lot of different things. So um, what else with with summer uh maintenance? Anything we're missing here?
SPEAKER_01Well using your topicals, keeping up on your dogs, grooming. More baths? Baths are good, and it's especially like when it's warm out and stuff, and you if you have a a pretty a pretty clean area, you know, you can you can wash dogs and put them out, you know, just towel them dry and let them let them romp the rest of the way dry. That's that's uh you know, especially the ones you're not showing. Uh that's that's great. You know, it does that you know, you do have to stay on the coats a little bit more, you know, because you want to get good skin health, as you don't want them to get, you know, any kind of yeast or anything going. And just, you know, enjoy the enjoy the summer. It's it's it's fine. You just have to modify your travel, modify your care, your routine a little bit, your plans for the dog shows a little bit. And I think as long as you're aware of it, you won't have a problem with it.
SPEAKER_02No, all valid points. Use your brain, think about it a little bit, make sure you're you know, if yeah. Try try walking barefoot outside once. And if the ground feels too hot for you, it's too hot for the frickin' dogs to walk on, you know. Like that's that's something I think that's probably really commonly overlooked, like decking, things like that, because we're wearing shoes, and so we don't really feel it. But then we set our dogs down and it's like, you know, burns their pads, it's like no buena. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, gotta have the shade thing going on and stuff, you know. Shade and and moving air, you know, it's amazing how strong animals are. I mean, they literally will do well with just a little shade, some water, some airflow, ventilation. You can go a long way with that. Where you run into trouble is like where we are, especially with toy dogs, where we're keeping them in refrigerated air. You know, we have to be able to maintain that. You're keeping more animals in a smaller area so you can climate control it. You've got to maintain that. You know, you have bigger, you know, bigger possibilities for something to go wrong. And if it goes wrong, it it's pretty bad.
SPEAKER_02And it all seems to go wrong at one time. Of course. Everything happens at once.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_02All right. Of course, of course. I think we we nailed the summer stuff. We nailed it. Hey, all right. Maybe we'll have to we'll have to keep this in mind for the winter because we're gonna have to have a winter one when that comes. But let's not get too far ahead of ourselves. That's like December. Let's not.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, we've got time on that.
SPEAKER_02All right, everybody enjoy the show. To Oklahoma, or to uh what OKC? Oklahoma City? OKC. Yep, up to Papian Nash. Awesome. Well, good luck with that, and uh we'll uh we'll hear about it when you get back next week on the on the next episode of the Tack Box Podcast. All right, everybody, thanks for joining us on this episode of the Tack Box Podcast for episode 61. We appreciate each and every one of you. Don't forget to subscribe, share it with your Facebook friends, let everybody know that the Tac Box Podcast is very informative. And uh, if you have any questions, let us know. We'll be more than happy to do another listener episode where we answer your questions and and and you know, we'll shout your name out and make sure that we get all Dale's amazing experience uh to answer your questions for you. So thanks for listening. We'll talk to you next week. Bye-bye now.
