Hot Weather, High Risk: How to Keep Your Dog Safe from Heat Stroke

Heat stroke is one of those emergencies where “we’ll watch them for a bit” can turn into heartbreak. Dr. Mike LoSasso from Frisco Emergency Pet Care, gets blunt about how fast dogs can overheat, how quickly organ damage can start, and why prevention is the best medicine when Texas temperatures climb.

We talk through real-world dog heat stroke prevention: when to skip walks, why morning outings are safer than midday trips, and how concrete and asphalt can burn paw pads long after the sun starts to set. We also explain why brachycephalic breeds like Boston Terriers, Boxers, Pekingese, and many Pit Bull type dogs are more vulnerable, even on days that do not feel extreme. Because dogs cool themselves mainly by panting, airway anatomy and excitement-driven exercise can turn into dangerous heat stress faster than most people expect.

Then we get practical about dog heat stroke symptoms and what to do immediately. Collapse, relentless panting, weakness, bright red gums, and red eyes are all warning signs. If you can take a rectal temperature, anything over about 104°F deserves urgent attention, but we don’t want you delaying care to confirm a number. We also cover common first-aid mistakes, including why ice-cold water can backfire by constricting blood vessels, and why rapid transport for IV fluids and emergency veterinary care is often what saves lives. Finally, we highlight a hidden cause: prolonged seizures can generate enough internal heat to create secondary heat stroke.

If this helped you, subscribe, share it with a fellow dog owner, and leave a review so more pet parents know what to do before the next heat wave hits.

To learn more about Frisco Emergency Pet Care visit:
https://www.FriscoEmergencyPetCare.com
Frisco Emergency Pet Care 
11201 Preston Road 
Frisco, Texas 75033 
469-287-6767 

Transcript

Welcome And What We Cover

SPEAKER_01 0:03

Welcome to the Frisco Emergency Pet Care Podcast, your trusted source for expert insight into emergency veterinary medicine. Hosted by Dr. Mike Lasasso, Chief of Staff at Frisco Emergency Pet Care, this podcast brings you essential information to help protect the health and safety of your dogs and cats. Serving North Dallas with 24-7 emergency and critical care, the team at Frisco Emergency Pet Care is here when every second counts. Now, let's begin.

Why Heat Stroke Is So Dangerous

SPEAKER_00 0:40

Heat stroke can escalate in minutes, and knowing the warning signs can save a dog or other pets' life. Welcome everyone. I'm Julie Schwenzer, co-host and producer with Dr. Mike Lasasso, the Chief of Staff at Frisco Emergency Pet Care. Dr. Lasasso, it's great to be back with you.

SPEAKER_02 0:56

Oh, howdy, Julie. It's always good to talk to you.

SPEAKER_00 0:59

Yeah, we're we're definitely interested in learning from you about this one because we know how important it is. What should pet parents, especially dog owners, know about heat stroke?

SPEAKER_02 1:10

I mean, I hate heat stroke more than I hate anything else, I think. Uh it's an awful, awful problem. It's not really disease. It's a condition that's obviously brought on by usually environmental factors, but uh always.

Prevention In Extreme Temperatures

SPEAKER_02 1:26

Um the the most important thing I think is honestly is prevention, is understanding what excess heat looks like. Now, here in Texas, we typically spend, I don't know, 20 or 30 days above 100 degrees as a as a high during the summer. Some summers we do twice that. Uh really kind of depends, and it does depend on the dog as well. When it gets hot, when it gets that hot, then don't walk them. You know, don't take them outside during the heat of the day. I would personally only take them outside in the mornings. I don't even like walking them in the evenings. Concrete absorbs a tremendous amount of heat. You can burn um, you can burn foot pads pretty badly. You know, if you wouldn't walk on the pavement because it hurts your bare feet, then your dog has no business being out there without some kind of foot protection like boots. But really, if it's that hot, why would you go outside anyway? People do it. And I have had, I had a few years ago, I had a patient brought to me uh a heat stroke brought by the police, not by the owner, because the owner who was walking the dog was taken by ambulance to a hospital for her heat stroke. So prevention is just critical.

High Risk Breeds And How Dogs Cool

SPEAKER_02 2:55

The other thing to realize is that the brachycephalic dogs, whether it's a boxer or a pit bull or a sharpet, or whether it's one of these little dudes, you know, the Bostons or the Pekineese, they they are more prone to heat stress and to heat stroke than other breeds are. Dogs transfer all of their heat through their respiratory tree. They breathe it out, they don't sweat anywhere. Theoretically, they sweat on their foot pads, which is almost completely useless. They transfer heat by breathing, and those dogs that have altered respiration because of their anatomy are super prone. About three years ago, my first heat stroke of the year was on April 1st, and it was 70 degrees outside. But he was a Boston Terrier who loved to run up and down the fence with the neighbor dog, and he was out there and got himself so worked up and did so much exercise that you know that he came in with a 107, 108-degree body tap. When you get your body temperature that high, um then your risk of really doing serious damage to multiple organ systems. Um your brain does not like to be that that hot. Your liver is frequently damaged, your GI tract, your intestines are going to be damaged, and the most important of all those is actually the endothelium, which which is not even a tissue that anybody's ever heard of. And what endothelium does is it lines, it's the cellular lining of every single one of your blood vessels. You have miles of endothelium, and when that gets damaged, then you start to try to clot because you've got a million micro clots, and then we run into all kinds of problems with the clotting cascade and trying to make sure that they're not going to freely bleed, and it is it's complicated, it's expensive, and depending on how bad it is when we start, the prognosis is generally not very good. I would say we probably save half, and maybe slightly more.

Safe Cooling And Rush To The ER

SPEAKER_02 5:21

One of the things that helps is actually kind of soaking them down and then get them to us. Don't spend time putting them in a bathtub. Ice water on the on the um on the legs and on the feet is is really not a good idea. No super cold water is is appropriate at all. Because what happens when you use really cold water is that cold water causes the blood vessels to shrink, and you don't get good blood flow, and so you don't really get a good temperature change. What you've done is you've restricted blood flow to the limbs. And the I mean the body's already shunting most of the blood flow into the trunk anyway. Um so I would not spend a lot of time icing them down, getting getting them wet is fine, but really they need to be on IV fluids and getting the support and the medication that they need. This is not something that should be handled at at home.

Warning Signs And Temperature Thresholds

SPEAKER_02 6:21

The biggest clinical sign really is collapse. They will not want to get up, they are breathing really hard. Uh, you may notice that they're that their mucous membranes, that their gums are a bright red. Um but those, if you have any any question, I would I would get them in. You know, certainly if you have the ability to take a rectal temp, but uh some some people do, uh, you know, anything anything over 104, I would suggest we need to see. Normal dog temperature goes up to about 102 and a half. I have seen heat stroke at 105, and I have seen it at 110, and I think that's as high as my thermometer will go. I've seen dogs with a thermometer just as high. And and unfortunately, in that case, we have very little chance of saving that particular individual. Now, that's assuming it that doesn't really matter. Most people are familiar with heat stroke because of environment this environmental stress, especially here in the you know the great state of Texas in the summertime. Um, the other complication is like I mentioned before, the brachycephalic dogs are definitely at risk even at lower temperatures. If they are super active dogs, they don't need to be out. My dog during the summertime. She's a pit bull, so she's got a compromised respiratory tract. And she's not very active, but she doesn't want anything to do with the heat either. So she goes out for two or three minutes at a time. She is never left outside uh on her own, even just leaving them outside for 30 minutes in the heat of the day, unless there is really good shelter, um, you know, shade, water available, it really isn't safe. And I cannot tell you how many either severely affected heat stroke dogs or dogs that are brought to us already deceased because somebody left them out for a couple of hours. And it a lot of times it's teenagers, but it's really a communication with a family of uh, hey, who let the dog out and who was supposed to let them back in? Um, you know, and gets that hot, I would definitely go out and I would stand there with them just to make sure you don't forget, you know, it's uh the other the medical reason we see heat stroke is typically seizures.

Seizures As A Hidden Heat Stroke Cause

SPEAKER_02 8:43

So dogs that have really violent seizures, they've got a huge amount of muscle activity. If they do that for 20-30 minutes, certainly if they do it for a couple of hours, they build up a tremendous amount of body heat. And so when somebody brings me a dog that's been seizing for two hours, we not only have to have a discussion about how are we going to treat this seizure disorder, but if we now have to do an emergency treatment for the heat stroke that is secondary to the seizures, then that's a uh obviously a more complicated conversation and a less rosy outlook, to be honest.

SPEAKER_00 9:23

And then if you could just expand too on, you know, once a pet parent sees signs of the heat stroke, what immediately they should do if they they see it possibly looking like slowing down, lethargic, maybe they they did collapse.

SPEAKER_02 9:39

Right. If they if they get really hot, um you know, anytime you think that they are moving more slowly than normal, if they come in and they are just exhausted when they normally wouldn't be, you kind of have to know your dog, right? So if if my dog bubbles goes outside for six minutes when it's hot, she's gonna come inside and immediately collapse on the on the hardwood floor and try to cool off. And that's that's very normal for her. Um but if you've got a dog that normally doesn't do that, but this time it was out for a little longer, or it was hotter, and they come in and they just go down, or if they're moving really slowly, or like I said, you see um injected membranes where they're where their mouth is is really red. Um, sometimes we'll see the the whites of their eyes get really red because they're trying to dilate all these blood vessels so they can get rid of some heat. Uh it's not the most effective way, but it's what the body knows to do, and they're probably panting as well. Um, if you've got a way to take their temperature, that's great. If you don't, uh personally, I would take them to an emergency hospital. I would just, you're better safe than sorry. There is no, there's really no bigger emergency for us than heat stroke from a timeliness standpoint. Um, I'll see a heat stroke before I'll see a GDV. It, you know, we and we think of that as the mother of all emergencies. It's it's not, it's a surgical problem. We've talked about it before. Um, but heat stroke trumps everything that comes into an emergency hospital. It's an ugly problem.

SPEAKER_00 11:26

Well, Dr. Lasasso, thank you for sharing this really important information. Again, we always appreciate your expertise.

SPEAKER_02 11:33

Yes, ma'am. Thank you.

Contact Info And Closing

SPEAKER_01 11:38

Thank you for listening to the Frisco Emergency Pet Care Podcast. To learn more, visit FriscoPetER.com. Call 469-287-6767. Or stop by 11201 Preston Road, Frisco, Texas, 75033. Open 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Frisco Emergency Pet Care is always here when your pet needs us most. Until next time, take care of your pets, and they'll take care of you!