Wild Mandala. Ep. 005. Tips for Summer 2026.

In this episode Dr. Keeney talks about all things heat-related and flea, tick and fly-related - to help us better protect our dogs, cats and horses this summer.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:09

Hello, welcome to the Wild Mondala Podcast. This is Dr. Kelly Keeney. I'm going to do an episode today on just some summertime tips from a more holistic slant, and hopefully you can hear our little hummingbirds out here. I'm sitting outside on our first summertime day up here and thought was inspired to go ahead and get some summer tips out. So mainly I just wanted to start by talking about heat from the perspective of kind of a traditional Chinese medicine view, and heat can be a pathogen, you know, in excess. And there's two types of heat. There can be deficient heat or excess heat. Deficient heat is usually the result of kind of a broken uh cooling system in the body, which is the yin. Um, and excess heat is often either excess yang energy or um I see very often damp heat issues, which are kind of all the itises in the body, the inflammatory processes that um can kind of gunk up the channels, and that friction can turn into heat. So I'll be doing deeper dives into the Chinese medicine terminology and all that in later episodes, but I definitely see heat um kind of playing out as a pathogenic force, especially in older patients where I do think we're dealing more with that yin deficiency side of things and just their tolerance for both heat and cold goes down. So it's an important thing to watch for. And first and foremost, I think it's really just super important to really observe, you know, what is happening with your with your pet. And you know, if they're showing signs of heat intolerance, really honoring that and rearranging or re-sculpting kind of the the kind of daily routine around um walks or rides earlier in the day, um, oftentimes that's better than than pump than pushing them to later in the evening. I feel like even after the sun goes down or things start to to technically cool off on an energetic level, that that um heat force kind of stays in play. Um so if there's a way to shift kind of a mid-morning walk to an early morning walk or even an evening walk to a morning walk, a lot of times uh they tolerate that better. So just really watching closely because I've also seen kind of this um heat intolerance and the effects of heat become kind of cumulative over the summertime, and uh it can really be uncomfortable for them. So if you're noticing a lot of cool-seeking excess water consumption, you know, your dog having to stop in every shady spot on the walk, just really dragging, then those are signs that they need some extra support. So there are things out there, you know, like cooling vests where you can even wet them down and put a cooling vest on, and that will give them kind of a core temperature drop so that they can have a little more longevity on the walks. Um, you know, horses have the same thing where we have to really watch them from overheating, and we don't we want to give them time to slowly cool off. Um, you want to be careful about just hitting them with a shock of cold water. If they've just gotten really hot, you need to kind of have everything kind of be gentle and gradual in terms of the cool down. Most people know this, but um just as another example. And yeah, I think there's also um I see actually a lot more than I'd expect people not protecting their dog's feet on the concrete. And sometimes it's obvious that they are sensitive to that heat there and they'll put themselves on the grass or something, but other times you know they can actually end up with burns and you're kind of dealing with the aftermath later. So any kind of protective boot if you need it, or making sure you're walking them on the grass and not on the hot pavement, um, it's super important. And then another thing I wanted to mention is just about um again, something I see surprisingly often is um the whole thing about people leaving their dogs in their cars. And I think I think it is obvious, you know, on a hot day in the sun not to do that. For most people, that's pretty clear. But I think we don't, you know, certainly any temperature over 80 degrees is um way too hot to have your dog in the car without, you know, the air conditioning running. Um but even anything over 60 degrees, you really need to be very cognizant not to let um let your dog stay in a car, even if it's over 60 degrees without some kind of window being down a couple of windows down at least two inches, even in those cooler temps, um, is super important to remember because they can get really hot in there, and you can gauge their level of you know, panting and and how overheated they're getting, but of course, we don't ever want to let it get to that point and never want to let them um you know, never want to leave them unattended, even um with support for any longer than you know, an hour or so in the car. So that's um just another really important thing to stay aware of. I think people think, oh, I'll just run in for a minute, and then you get distracted, and then it's 20 minutes, and that can be enough to cause hyperthermia and even death. So it's very, very critical to just keep that in mind. Um, and most people are aware, but I just feel very obligated to mention it. Um making sure that um also are lighter colored, um, especially horses because they're out all the time, but even you know, dogs and cats that don't have any pigment, um, they can burn really badly, and um ear tips can burn, noses, uh, and then even you know, dogs that and and cats that are prone to skin cancer, you know, can can be sensitive, their whole bodies um can be sensitive. So protective clothing, sunblock. Um, I just recently re-looked this up because I had a patient, um, a client with a kitty that whose ear tips were burning pretty significantly, and she had done an internet search and um was finding that zinc oxide was toxic and wasn't finding any good other alternatives and um it actually shouldn't be toxic. I think if you use um mineral sunscreens, certainly those that are veterinary formulated, I think um dermiscent, I think is one that has a better a nice uh natural over-the-counter mineral-based sunblock, and then also just anything for you know children, so it doesn't have a lot of you know, no fragrances and um just kind of basic mineral sunscreen uh should definitely be safe. And um, yeah, it was super important to remember about the sun exposure. So um the other thing I wanted to mention just was about f fly protection. We're seeing um currently, it was just announced, I think, a couple days ago, that um that screw worm has now entered the US and that's a pretty devastating uh fly transmitted disease or organism that can be zoonotic. It gets usually into s open wounds and can it's kind of flesh eating and can cause um actually death to if it gets bad enough. So we need to be extra careful now about uh really watching for any wounds, especially on the underside of the horse. Um or you know, livestock, of course, is what really gets affected most commonly because they're in higher numbers, higher densities and not getting getting the same level of observation, but you know, making sure that you're putting fly repellent on any wounds. Um, and that goes for dogs too, any dogs that are kind of outside or cats that are outside, we want to make sure flies can't get in and and lay eggs in in any kind of open wounds. So that's something to just um really be quite aware of and make sure you're on top of that. Um yeah, so those are just a little bit of some some known, some less well known, but just wanted to kind of run through all that and um for whatever it's worth. Hopefully there was a useful tidbit in there. And um yeah, thank you so much for joining me here and yeah, grateful that you're listening. If you have any specific topics that you want me to cover in future podcasts, you can definitely reach out to us on any of our channels or through our website email um your contact form. You're welcome to to um voice your interest in anything that you might want me to cover in the future. So yeah, thanks again. Sending love to you all.