Article 3

Canine Heat Stress - What Can Happen

By Paul Jensen
It is very important that you pay attention to your dog in the hot months. I know from experience that dogs being field tested during the summer months occasionally slow down and if you are not aware what is happening, you may cause the dog irreparable harm or even death. One of my friends had that happen to her Springer Spaniel. This dog was an eager retriever that loved to fetch tennis balls. You could throw the tennis ball, as far into the woods as possible and the dog would bring it back within minutes and drop it at your feet. You could literally keep throwing the ball until your arm got tired. If you fainted as if you were throwing the ball into the woods towards east, the dog would charge into the woods while you threw the ball unseen by the dog into the woods towards west. The dog would search and search and even if it took the dog 45 minutes, she would eventually come back with the ball, because she trusted you that the ball was somewhere and she wanted to bring it back. Her owner did a lot of retriving with the dog, and one summer when the temperatures were about 95 degrees F and the relative humidity at 90%, she took the dog for its normal run and threw balls for the dog and kept doing it until the dog collapsed.  The dog got its leg caught on a ground vine, flipped over and never stood up again. The owner thought that the dog had broken her neck and since she couldn't carry it out of the woods, she came to get Vibeke and me and we brought a spade with us and buried the dog in the woods where she had loved to run. She had clearly died of heat stroke, but we never had the heart to tell our friend the real reason the dog died.

About the author:
Paul Jensen has been involved in raising, training, showing, judging, and breeding dogs for more than 30 years. To learn more please go to The Small Munsterlander web site.