Heat-resistant bootees, frozen bananas and pet sunscreen – it takes a lot to keep dogs safe during a nationwide heatwave. As pet owners across the US try to keep cool themselves, they’re changing dog-walking habits to accommodate boiling sidewalks or scorching parks, relying on indoor pet games to relish air conditioning, and embracing what has become a new normal for the dog days of summer, as extreme heat becomes an increasingly common reality.
Julie Nashawaty, a professional dog walker who lives in Boston, says her various trips to take pups out around the city have become shorter, as the temperatures reached 90 to 100 degrees this week. “These are really quick breaks, quick walks,” she said. “They sit in the shade under the tree, pee, and then it’s straight back home, where sometimes I’ll even put a cooling blanket on them.” She also puts little boots on dogs’ paws, so their bare feet don’t have to touch blazing concrete.
Sometimes, dogs aren’t so accommodating. Nashawaty once walked a bernese mountain dog named Bowman who weighed about 120lb. When it got hot, Bowman didn’t like to walk and would sit down on the sidewalk, refusing to move, which Nashawaty calls a “dog strike”.
“It was funny and cute, and everyone was pointing, laughing, taking pictures,” Nashawaty said. “But I couldn’t get him to move.” After 15 minutes, Bowman finally got up. “I was like, ‘Get your ass up,’ and he did, and from then on I brought treats to keep him moving.”
Lyss Ryann, a 31-year-old who lives in Las Vegas, says her six-year-old Siberian husky Ellie Mae “does a great job” of letting her know when it’s too hot to stay outdoors. “She slows down a little, looks over her shoulder, and then I know it’s time to head back inside,” Ryann said. “I often pick her up and carry her back inside as well.”
Ryann keeps watermelon slices and frozen peanut butter in the fridge to give to Ellie Mae. Logan Crispin, a 25-year-old from Pennsylvania, freezes bananas for her black lab, Morrie. “He’ll just sit there and gnaw on it,” she said. “He also eats ice cubes in the summer.”
On really hot days, she walks Morrie only before 8am or after 8pm. Before she moved into a house with a backyard, this meant that Morrie sometimes had accidents because he stayed in all day.
In Tweed, Ontario, 36-year-old Melissa Murphy keeps her two basset hounds, Gussy and Maui, stimulated inside by using lick mats, food plates with ridges and bumps, which vets say release endorphins in dogs’ brains.
Dr Jamie Richardson, head of veterinary medicine at New York’s Small Door Vet, says that most of her clients understand not to walk their dogs during the peak of the heat. In the middle of the day in the summer, New York dog parks tend to be empty. But sometimes, she’ll see people seeking blister relief for their pups after they walk on the searing pavement.
“Dogs will generally be OK if they go a few days without exercise,” Richardson said. “There’s exercising the body, and there’s exercising the mind. So you can do brain games with them, like a puzzle treat” – a toy that requires dogs to complete a simple game to reveal a snack. Exercise is important for dogs, but when it’s “around 90F all day, even at night, super, super muggy like we have in New York now”, it must be limited.
“Dog sunscreen” exists, and while it may sound like a questionable product from Goop, Richardson says it can work for hairless dogs. “You have to be careful, because zinc in high quantities can be toxic to dogs,” she said. “Dog sunscreen is basically mineral sunscreen” – but, unlike the human variety, it’s made without zinc. Still, “just as with people, the best way for dogs to avoid the sun is not by putting on sunscreen, it’s by staying out of the sun.”
Unfortunately, heatstroke or other temperature-related conditions will continue to affect dogs as summers get hotter. On the Fourth of July, a Texas dog died after cooling down in a lake as temperatures peaked at 98F (36.7C). Officials warned owners to avoid the lake, saying that certain algae present could be fatal to dogs if ingested.
“We have to think that the climate crisis impacts not only future generations of humans, but obviously it impacts how our pets will be able to do the things that we want to do with them,” Richardson said. “[Climate change] is more of a broader philosophical issue, and it applies to everyone, not just pets.”
And not just dogs. This week Nashawaty, the Boston pet sitter, noticed a family of six geese seeking a shady spot on the sidewalk. “One lady on the street said, ‘How cute,’ and I was like, ‘No, it’s very hot and they need water,’” Nashawaty said. “They were barely holding on, sucking any moisture out of the concrete.”
She was able to get a paper plate from a business owner and pour water into it, hydrating the family, which included a few babies. Soon, someone else brought out a water jug, and as seen in a TikTok Nashawaty posted, the geese perked up, letting out “happy chirps of thanks”. She captioned the post: “Sometimes being a petsitter means being there for all animals in need” – especially as the Earth gets hotter.
