With temperatures forecast to remain high throughout the UK, there’s no better time to make sure you’re well aware of the potential risks to animals and how to keep them safe this Summer. Below we run through some tips and advice to keep different types of animals safe in the warmer weather.<\/p>\n
Learn the signs of heatstroke to keep your dog safe:<\/p>\n
If you see a dog suffering from heatstroke, they’ll need to have their body temperature lowered by:<\/p>\n
Ticks are small, grey-brown parasites that suck blood from other animals (and humans!) with 6 or 8 legs, growing in size and darkening as they fill with blood. They climb or drop onto your pet’s coat when they brush past them, which can commonly occur when in woodland or grassland.<\/p>\n
It’s important to remove ticks from your pets as soon as you notice them as they can carry diseases, such as Lyme Disease. Check your dog after returning from a walk – they’re big enough to spot by eye, but you can also run your hands over their body, particularly around the head, neck, ears and paws, to check for any small lumps that indicate the tick’s presence. Upon removal, it’s crucial to avoid squeezing the tick’s body or leaving the head in your pet’s body, as this can increase the chances of disease transmission. Therefore the best approach is using a tick removal tool (easily found in pet shops or vets), slowly pushing it under the tick, and twisting the tick clockwise until it comes loose. You should dispose of the tick in some tissue and flushing it down the toilet.<\/p>\n
You can prevent ticks from biting your pets through tick treatments which kill or repel ticks once they attach themselves to the pet’s fur. You can ask your vet for more information about this. Never use cat tick medicine on dogs or dog tick medicine on cats – this can be fatal. If a tick has fed on your pet for a number of days, they’ll drop off but they may have transmitted a disease in this time. Lyme disease is one such infection which can be extremely serious – symptoms include depression, fever, lack of appetite, lameness and lethargy, swollen joints and swollen lymph nodes. It can be treated by antibiotics if caught early – contact your vet immediately if you suspect that your dog or cat has Lyme disease.<\/p>\n
Horses are very much prone to dehydration and ultimately heat exhaustion or heatstroke as they often spend a lot of time outside in the sun. Some tips for keeping your horses cool and hydrated are below:<\/p>\n
Signs of horses struggling from the heat include fast breathing and heart rate, lack of appetite and not drinking, lethargy, urinating less, and muscle spasms. You can tell if your horse is dehydrated by performing a quick examination of their gums – they should be pink, shiny, and moist. If they’re dry, pale or tacky then they could be dehydrated. If your horse is suffering from heat stroke or heat exhaustion then you should move them to a shaded area and pour water over them. Crucially, make sure you call your vet for advice.<\/p>\n
Much of this advice comes from the RSPCA<\/a>. You can find out more and get further advice by visiting their website here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" With temperatures forecast to remain high throughout the UK, there’s no better time to make sure you’re well aware of the potential risks to animals and how to keep them safe this Summer. Below we run through some tips and advice to keep different types of animals safe in the warmer weather. General Pet Advice: […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":7989,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/merlinvet.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7988"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/merlinvet.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/merlinvet.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/merlinvet.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/merlinvet.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7988"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/merlinvet.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7988\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/merlinvet.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7989"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/merlinvet.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7988"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/merlinvet.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7988"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/merlinvet.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7988"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}