Heat Protocols with CCU's Kennel Master Deb | SOURCE

Hey everyone, and welcome back to The Source. I'm Maya, a.k.a. Voice of Reason, and today we are here with our Kennel Master, Dev. Today we're going to be talking about some crucial heat protocols. And safety measures that you're going to want to take during these hot months as we move into July and August. This is going to be especially big for our police K-9 handlers, working dog handlers in general. So let's just jump right into it. So Deb, can you, just to give our audience an idea of how to understand heat exhaustion in K-9s, can you sort of explain the starting signs or the key signs that your, your K-9 may be leaning into heat exhaustion?

Yes, definitely. I do think that it kind of, people focus on it more in the summer. First off, it can happen in any different type of environment. We've had it happen to dogs in the middle of winter. So it's not always the summertime, first and foremost. But some of the signs we're gonna be looking out for is, you know, first and foremost, the dog having a high temperature. That can be related to a lot of other things, but anything above 105 is concerning for us. Yeah, where they might be going into again the heat, heat stress or heat exhaustion. Unable or, you know, unwilling to respond to commands properly. So if the dog just like stops listening when normally they listen really well, and then labored breathing. So this can be seen as like panting, you know, opening their mouth as wide as they can and just like sucking in air. Okay, so it does present differently dog to dog. You can also see where the dog has like convulsions or like almost looking like mini seizures where their body's kind of like twitching, or they're unable to keep themselves standing as they're so hot their body is just kind of shutting down, which does go with them kind of collapsing as well. So those are some of the signs we've seen. But we've also seen dogs that have like unsteady or weak gaits. We've seen it present as limping. The dog that should be like healing right next to you is just like wobbling into you or kind of pressing up against you to remain balanced as they're walking. So we've seen it present a lot of different ways in dogs, but those would be the signs that we would be looking out for.

Okay. And then if you see a canine start to present with these symptoms, what are the immediate actions that you should take? Obviously we're going to want to get our dog to the vet, um, but before you can get to that point, what would you say?

So with our kennel, we obviously have to deal with client dogs versus our own dogs as well. Heat stress is one of those emergent situations where we're kind of like, we're gonna do it now and then consult you later to make sure that the dog stays healthy. If we do have like an assistant or someone available to help us consult an owner right away, we'll have them do that while we're taking care of the dog. But it's always making sure that the dog is taken care of first. So as, as a boarding kennel and a training kennel, we do have to kind of differentiate the two. But we would immediately take the dog into our kennel. So our kennel is not above 70 degrees in the summer, so it's always supposed to be very cool in there, and we would immediately start hosing the dog down with cold water. And we would bring over multiple hoses, not just the one, so we could really thoroughly soak the dog in that cold tap water and see if that can kind of keep their temperature from raising up higher. So now they're in the AC and we're cooling them down. We might even keep the hose focused in areas that are going to cool them down faster, um, around their head and neck area. And then on their underside where their armpits and leg pits are, kind of rolling down their legs. That's going to kind of cool them off a little bit faster there. With that, we do take a dog's temperature every 10 to 15 minutes depending on what the original temperature was of the dog. So if it was low like 104 to 105, we might take it every 15 minutes to make sure that it wasn't raising even higher. But if it was already at like 106 degrees, we'd be taking it every 10 minutes to make sure that it's actually coming down. Yeah. So we do have to use an anal thermometer for that to reliably take that. So the dog is not going to want that stuck up into them multiple times. So we do have to be mindful of that, that we're not overdoing it. And that's how we kind of monitor it to see if that cold water has kind of halted that progress of it continuing to climb with their temperature, or if it's actually bringing it back down. We would give it about, uh, 30 minutes. So that's 2 or 3 different temperature checks before taking the dog to a veterinarian's office. If we can bring them back down out of it, we would still consult again an owner if we needed to, and then the veterinarian.

And then one thing I kind of wanted to point out, because the United States Police Canine Association actually shared, um, some like fast facts on this, their vet Paul McNamara shared this, and so one thing he says is that there's an unfortunate myth that cooling too fast could put them in shock. So is that something you kind of have to correct your students on when you're teaching them heat protocol or heat stress protocol and tell them like, hey, the most important thing is cooling them down where it's— they're not going to go into shock because of it?

We do have a more extreme version of our cooling down, which is an ice bath. So I agree they're not going to go into shock, but you can cool them down past what their actual temperature should be.

So that's too—

yeah, now it's too low, so it's almost hypothermic. So now it's like 98 degrees, 99 degrees, whatever it is under 100. It's kind of dangerous for them to be that low because now you're going from one extreme to the other. But we do have protocols for an extreme measure to be taken, which is if that dog's temperature is already super, super high It's like the surest way to halt that progress immediately and bring it down, stop them from like cooking inside out, basically. Yeah, basically.

Okay. And then this is more just something I'm curious about, I guess, but are there any like specific breeds or certain types of dogs that you found are more susceptible to heat stress? Like maybe a dog that hasn't been acclimated properly with the temperatures, like isn't used to working outside?

I'd say any dog who has been acclimated is, you know, they're a little bit more prepared, or their handler should be a little bit more prepared because their dogs are willing and able to work in those higher and lower temperatures. Yeah, but there isn't a specific breed that is going to be more at risk. I will say if the dog is overweight, they're a little bit more at risk because they're holding more on their body, they're working a little bit harder, so say maybe they're tracking like a mile or so, that's gonna feel a lot longer to a dog that's overweight than it is to a dog who's in prime condition. So they're gonna be working a little bit extra, and it's gonna take a little bit more to cool them down a little bit faster than it would for a dog who is in peak condition. But any of your working breeds, we have, you know, German Shepherds, Labrador Retrievers, Belgian Malinois, Dutch Shepherds. We've had a lot of other breeds in that, that we've encountered it with over the years as well. I'm sure even before my time they encountered it with multiple different breeds as well. So, and then again, people who do post online, veterinarians' offices, you know, like Tactical Canines, trying to help people with just little alerts like, hey, be mindful of this. It can happen to pet dogs too. So I'm sure that's a whole variety of breeds as well that are affected.

So CCU has the 10-15 rule, which if you don't know about the 10-15 rule, we have a short set that AJ, um, sort of gives an overview of what the 10-15 rule is and why we use it. But in these hot summer months, we change that up a little bit, don't we?

Yeah, in the summer months, so anything over 80 degrees is where we are watching for our heat stress protocols. To make sure that our dogs are getting adequate rest in between the sets as it kind of climbs. It can be 80 degrees and high humidity, or it can be 90 degrees and low humidity. It really depends on the temperature and like weather conditions outside, but we do change that from a 10-15 to a 10-25. So now it's that 10 minutes without water and then the 25 minutes with water, resting in an AC like a an insert in someone's vehicle, in a crate in a shaded area, or kennel inside of our AC-controlled kennel. All of that is where we would do the 10-25. And so when we have that, it just allows the dogs, even if they're doing the same number of sets, or, you know, a long set that's, you know, maybe a mile or 40 minutes or 10 minutes, whatever it might be, they're still having that adequate rest time. Time because it's much hotter outside now.

Yeah, absolutely. And then also following up on that, our trainers also specifically find certain areas to train for that reason because Kennel puts out protocol like we've been talking about, about where you should and should not be training and the best times of day to be training versus 2 o'clock in the afternoon when the sun's at its hottest and, and bearing right down on the dogs.

Yeah, definitely. We know that a lot of people don't have the options to change where they're training. I mean, especially if you're, you're in a state there's like no shade anywhere unless you're inside. Um, so we get that, but we do— we're, we're thankfully in a very wooded area, so we would choose to be in the shade in the woods doing things, whether that's, uh, patrol work or tracking in the woods, instead of being out in the field kind of doing obedience in what we would call like our fishbowl where everyone can see you. There's no shade and you just have that direct sunlight. So we would try and choose the different areas, and sometimes we even do night training instead. So they'll like come in earlier, like, hey, 4 or 5 AM, come in. We're gonna start in the dark and work till lunch, and then when it's, you know, supposed to be 97 degrees outside, we're gonna head home. Or even, we're not going to come in because today is going to be too hot, and we're going to do night training from like 6 PM till 6 AM the next day to try and give people some reprieve from that and keep the dogs at as low risk as possible of running into that.

Yeah. Oh, and then also they can work through any training issues that might present working in the dark.

Yeah, exactly. So it's also, again, for the training aspects, but to kind of help the dogs as well.

Yeah, absolutely. And then are there any, like, particular types of water bowls that you would recommend? For example, I know a lot of our guys use Pels. We have some that use the plastic Buddy Bowls. Does it make a difference really of what they're using in the heat?

Um, no, all of the bowls that we have— so there's like stainless steel, obviously metal, when that metal gets hot, in turn that water is going to get a little bit warmer. The plastic that we use in the Buddy Bowls is dog safe, it's non-toxic, so even if it gets really hot, it's not going to release anything into the water. We do recommend, and part of what we send out to our staff and students who are here in course when it does get hot like this, is that it does need to be in the shade. So don't— like, we see a lot of times will place their water buckets on top of their car and leave it outside, and then it's in direct sunlight. So we'll always like maybe put in the trunk or, you know, in like a side seat or something away from the dog if you have to keep it away from them, but in the shade where it's still gonna remain kind of cooler. Even if it's not ice cold, it's still gonna be not warm and then extremely hot in those instances. And then again, we only give certain amounts of water throughout the day at once for other health reasons than heat stress. So we only give like 2 inches of water one time throughout the day. and then we have to refill it as needed. So even if it is kind of warm at that time and the dog drinks it down, then we dump out the rest and refill it with 2 inches of fresh cool water so it can still stay cool throughout the day, not just sitting there and getting gross.

Yeah, absolutely. Now, one thing I'm kind of interested in, because as those who listen know, I obviously came in from the pet side of things doing personal training with my dogs and then joined the team. We see a lot of like cooling mats or cooling bandanas sold for dogs. Do you have any like opinions? Are they effective? Do we use them?

Uh, so our company CCU does not use any of these measures that pets have. We prefer not to have anything inside the crates or kennels with the dogs. Some of the chemicals that go into those cooling mats, unless it's just like a frozen block of water can be dangerous if the dogs ingest them. And in such a high-stress environment inside of our extremely loud kennel, we don't want them to tear that up and ingest it, and then we have another health issue on our hands. So we don't use anything like that inside of our kennels and things. However, we do know in times of heat stress, like our veterinarian, when we have had to take dogs there, they use things like, you know, this is a technically pet-related, but they use like chilled subcutaneous fluids. They have cooling mats that they put in the kennels that they use because they use stainless steel kennels. And so, or at least our vet does here. And so they have like an actual cooling room, so it's a little bit colder than the rest of their facility, although they're also AC controlled, so it's not going to be like crazy high heat anyways, right? Um, and so with that, we do know that they use some of those measures to kind of keep the dogs cool, um, but that's in a controlled, very tightly monitored environment. Um, and here, not to say we're not watching the dogs, but you might not be able to see the backside of the kennel, or you might not walk past that dog more than every 20 or 30 minutes. And the dogs can have problems. They can tear that off, they can ingest it, they can tear it up. There's a lot of different stuff that can happen, so we don't use use that here. I do know that cooling mats are effective in helping, fans are effective in helping and keep the dog's temperature regulated, but in a heat stress situation, I don't know if they actually help cool the dog down any faster.

Okay, that's good to know though. And then you kind of touched on this a little bit, mentioning like fans and the temperature we keep our kennel at. So how do you make sure as Kennel Master that the indoor kennels, because it is enclosed obviously, how do you make sure those maintain to stay temperature during like the hottest hours of the day?

Yep. So we do have a set number of kennels inside. We try not to overload that. Um, when we do take dogs in and out of our kennels, it's very quick. Doors don't stay open. Um, we don't have windows to let in sunlight, which can bring in a lot of extra heat as well. So it's just our AC machines in there. We have 3 different fans and 3 different dehumidifiers to try and get rid of humidity that's brought on by having, you know, animals in an enclosed setting. Yes, that it doesn't overload our AC machine, and then the fans are to kind of help move that cooler air around to again keep everything regulated. We've found that even at the highest day, keeping our temperature at 70, it can be 97 degrees outside, which it was literally just this last and our kennel was not higher than 72 degrees, which is very good. That was not that high in terms of how cold or warm our kennel is on that particular day. Now we do also have outside kennels that our dogs go in, so we do have to be more mindful with them and monitoring them a bit closer during the summer months. So they have kennels outside, they've got adequate shade from the elements outside from that direct sunlight, They've got cubbies which stay relatively cool throughout the summer, even when it's really hot outside. And just making sure that they have cold water throughout the day is very, very important. But we do switch dogs out there to get them acclimated to those high temperatures. That way, when they do come out for training, they're not going from that 70-degree kennel out to a 97-degree day and what we would call getting gassed out, like way too fast for training.

Yeah, absolutely. That's a really great point, actually, sort of using that as an acclimation period. So kind of touching on that, talking about them gassing out a little early in their training set, um, I kind of want to move it to exercise routines or training in hot weather. So from a Kennel Master's perspective, what are the best practices when you are going to be training dogs in the hot weather?

Uh, with that, we let all of our trainers know. And this is specifically for our trainers. When we do release dogs to students and things like that, we've got a different set of rules that we require them to follow. But when our trainers are there and they've been taught how to notice these signs and take care of it as quickly as possible, if they do see a dog going into heat stress, we give them a little bit more leniency. Um, so we try not to have dogs in direct sunlight for more than 15 minutes at a time. So if it is gonna be a longer set, we'll be like, okay, go through the water. If you're going on a track, I don't care if you don't wanna get in the water, go through the water so the dog can cool down a little bit. Or, you know, make a left turn or a right turn or something and go through the woods, which again, for tracking purposes, that's terrain changes and all different things that keep it really real for patrol work and things that we have to do. Obviously, we like being in our big open field where we're not getting stuck on things, you're not gonna slip into a hole, but we might choose to do that on a separate day where it's not as hot, just seeing what the temperature and weather is like for that particular day. And then obedience we can do anywhere. So we can do it down in the shade, we can do it, you know, under our gazebo, we can do it in a lot of different areas that are keeping the dogs out of that direct sunlight, which we're trying to do those peak heat hours. However, for the training purposes of, you know, keeping the dogs as safe as possible, we do want to make sure that we're just monitoring them as closely as possible throughout their training. And that is— I mean, it's supposed to be on the handlers while they're here, but a lot of times they're new and they're trying to learn all this other information as well. So it's really on our trainers to to see those signs and symptoms and say like, hey, we're stopping now. Um, and then kind of calling it as is. So they don't know the signs of when the dog's working, and they don't know the signs of when the dog is literally in like heat stress or health trouble because they can't read their dog. And so that's why, again, it's on the trainer to kind of control those things, and they make decisions day to day, which is something that, you know, the rest of us don't like. They're like, well, I want an actual schedule for training because I need to know. And we're like, well, it's day to day because it's the middle of summer and we might choose to do night training tomorrow because it's 97 degrees outside.

Really focusing on putting the dog's health first because this may not be convenient for you to train early in the morning or late at night, but it's best for the dog. It also kind of helps you socialize them to different times of day or night. Yeah, different temperature drops.

That's true. And we don't necessarily avoid the hottest days because we know that these dogs are going to have to go work out in anyways. But that also is, you know, maybe right now this person isn't equipped to handle or notice the signs of this dog like this, but later on in their course they will be.

Yeah.

Um, and then they're able to. So there shouldn't be any, you know, later on down the line like, oh well, my dog went into heat stress because I didn't remember the signs, or I couldn't read that my dog was having these symptoms. And it's like, you've had this dog for a year now, right? Yeah. And you're telling me this now? So yeah.

And then how would you— you kind of touched on this before as well with, uh, overweight dogs being more— or obese dogs being more likely to go into heat stress. But how would you adjust their training based on that? Is that— I know that's probably more of a training, uh, department thing, but you know, how would you suggest they do it based on even the dog's age? So if we're working with under a year old adolescent, senior dog, especially relating to the summer months and when it's really hot outside.

When you have a dog that is overweight, in any instance, whether that's a puppy who's overweight and growing or an older dog that's overweight or a retired working dog that's overweight, we do have exercise plans in place, I guess you could say. So our kennel is equipped to do, um, like interactive exercise with the dogs. A lot of times that does mean that the dog can't be in any type of training. This is strictly because we are going to be playing with the dogs more often than not, not just like throwing a toy for them and just letting them do whatever, but we have to be interactive with them and keeping them motivated and keeping their bodies moving around. So we would take them on like a circuit walk or a circuit jog, or, you know, we go through set different little areas and we do go through shade, we do go through sunlight. We try not to stay in one area so the dog doesn't get bored. And as we are interacting with them, you know, we use verbal praise to kind of keep the dog motivated. And then again, that toy to keep the dog motivated. If we do see a dog who's overweight, we'll ask a trainer, like if they are able to be in training, can you fit this dog in for some shorter sets of maybe obedience or detection or tracking, whatever that dog is in, just some shorter sets so they can get their bodies moving, but only for a short amount of time so that we can build up their stamina and not overtax their bodies and definitely not overheat their bodies as they are trying to kind of exercise and bring those things down.

Yeah. And I've kind of seen your— it's pretty well known that Deb has probably one of the most in-depth and expansive training manuals, both for kennel technicians and the Kennel Master course which she leads. But when it comes to bringing in new kennel technicians or even students, you know, do you ever get some of the same common questions about why do you do this for heat protocol versus this, or maybe— I feel like one thing I've heard a few times just during my time in general, you know, oh, we'll just work him through the sun, like we'll just keep going, he'll be fine. Yeah, we do hear that a lot, which they do have to work in high temperatures. Yeah, but we also have the luxury during training to be proactive in their, in their behavior and their symptoms that might be showing.

So part of the things that I teach is not just about heat stress is first aid, common kennel injuries, things like that as well. And like you said, I do extensive training with most of the new staff who kind of have to come into the company and spend some time in our kennel and get yelled at by me on a regular daily basis. So with that, I will say that although dogs do have to do this in like everyday life, they don't have to do it right off the bat. We have to acclimate them up to that point so that once they leave here, if you're continuing on doing these things slow, slowly but surely, you'll get them to the point where they're acclimated enough that the risk is really low for them because they're so used to working in that environment, in that temperament, and things like that every day.

But that comes with proper acclimation.

Yeah, but it comes with proper acclimation. You can't just say, oh well, in 2 weeks I'm going to take my dog out to Texas and it's 107 degrees every day and we're working in the middle of the the desert, your dog is going to be at increased risk during that time if you go from Georgia humidity to dry heat out there at 107 degrees, you know. And I'm not sure, like, if that's the actual temperatures or not, but that's kind of the point. You can't go from one area to another area without some acclimation in, in that for the dog, for their health and safety. Um, here we do get a lot when a new person comes to facility for training, or when a new staff member comes to the facility for training, um, we'll hear, well, I was a vet tech at an office and that's not how our vets told us to do it. We obviously are going to train to the best of our abilities in anything we pick up, yes, but we're not in the middle of a war zone. We don't need to, um, we've had people like with bloat, they're like, well, we were told to just, you know, pop it with a needle. Right? I'm like, we're not doing that. We have access to licensed veterinarians, right? We're gonna take them to the veterinarian first, okay? Um, for vet techs specifically, well, our vets told us to do this, or we were told to restrain a dog like this, to sedate them, all this other type of stuff when they're encountering problems. And I'm like, that's not what we do because we, we have to work the dogs through this. But yeah, that they're not you know, crazy in the muzzle, just trying to attack people when we're trying to help them during first aid, other things like that. And so that does get a lot of people's attention that we take the time to work through issues instead of just kind of passing them off to the next thing, and that we do a lot of things differently. But I will say we did a lot of work with our working dog veterinarian. When you have access to a good veterinarian who has dealt with a lot of working dogs you can adjust different things that you're doing inside of your kennel for acclimation and just for the health of the dogs in general. And you can take the time to build that routine up to create as less risk as possible for the dogs.

Yeah. And then we've talked about it kind of like at different points, but sort of overall, what specific heat protocols do we have in place? Um, just like general guidelines for like a general email you might send out to our trainers ahead of a really hot week?

Yeah, so ahead of a really long week that's supposed to be hot, we've got two different emails. One for any, any temperatures between 80 degrees, so 80 to 90 degrees, and then any temperatures between 90 above. If it's 90 above, that incorporates 100 plus as well, so basically anything above 90 degrees. And so we do our 10:25. That's the first thing. All dogs are mandatory on a 10:25. Now, please make sure your students know about this. Our staff gets told about this as well. Even if we're doing like basic things like kennel maintenance, our dogs are not allowed outside for more than 10 to 15 minutes. So we would prefer for it to be 10 minutes where they can walk or go to the bathroom and then come in real fast. But the max is going to be 15 minutes outside. And then they'll come in and we'll put them in a crate inside where it's in the AC and it's shaded, or into their outside kennel again once we're done cleaning it really fast so that they're out of that direct sunlight. And then once we start, we always start off with the smallest sets of the day. That's in time and in the stamina that the dog is going to be using. So we'll start with like basic obedience. So that it's a little set for the dog, and it's something that's relatively easy. We're not throwing them right into the heavy-duty stuff, which is like, you know, patrol work or tracking a mile, things like that. Once we've done that, we do make sure that the dogs are getting adequate water. So again, cool water and that set amount of 2 inches of water throughout the day. And then we do also make sure that we are monitoring our students. And our staff pretty closely for signs of heat stress as well, because obviously if the dogs are out in it, the staff and students are going to be working overtime to try and— like, I wouldn't say make up the time, but working extremely fast to get the dogs in for their care. So they're moving at double the speed they might normally be moving, and so they're expelling a lot of energy. They're out in that heat right alongside the dogs, and our trainers are running Only on Red Bull. Yeah, most of our trainers live off of coffee or energy drinks. So basically caffeine just all around. So we're like, please hydrate. Don't overhydrate. We've had students who are like, well, you told us to hydrate, so we drank 3 gallons of water. And then they're over here like almost water toxicity, like throwing up. And they're like so out of it. You're like, you drank too much water. You need the proper levels of hydration.

So then do you have any like guidelines for our handlers or our trainers that are out in this heat for protocol? I know this isn't really a kennel thing. This is just more I'm curious about.

Kind of just what we've already gone over. Set time limits for your dogs. You know, you can still get your training hours. I know our facility does 4 hours a week. I know that some departments and other areas might say like, oh, well, you have to get 4 hours a day. If you have like an 8-hour shift or a 12-hour shift, whatever it might be, you can still get 4 hours of training and not have to do it all at once and overload your dog or yourself. Or yourself, yeah. You can break it up into little areas here through there, maybe once an hour doing one little thing, um, so that you still get your allotted training time. You don't have to work it all at once and overtax yourself and your dog. Obviously, hydration is key as well. Adequate rest is something that—

The dog's on break, you're on break.

Yeah, if the dog is on break, you're on break. Even if you're just observing something else, you shouldn't be running around doing other things to try and overtax yourself. Obviously, if you're working, you might have to do other things, but you can choose to do paperwork, or, you know, a lot of time cops are driving from one place to another place, so you're gonna be sitting down, you're gonna be in AC, like, Okay, you can kind of rest during that so that you're not overtaxing yourself. There is some other things that we would recommend, but it's not in relation to heat stress. It's just kind of rules that we think is best practices for, for our students and staff members that we have here. So I, I won't really get into that portion, but there is a lot that can be done in relation to heat stress to kind of acclimate yourself and your dog and keep them as safe as possible. One of those things being, like I already mentioned, we put crates into a shaded area, or we put our dogs into our kennel where it's AC controlled. Or if we're going to switch a dog to our outside kennels, we do it slowly so they're acclimated to it. We don't just bring a dog in and immediately put them outside if it's 90 degrees outside. We're going to kind of work them up to that. And then we do require all of our students have active heat alarms in their cars if they're a police officer, or, you know, even if they come through with their benefits, if they're with the department, that they have a proper insert, that they've got their window fans, and that they have their heat alarm set up fully. And we like thoroughly check through that to make sure that the dog's never at risk.

Yeah, that's actually one thing I was going to ask you, just like as we start moving towards closing this out, you know, what are our this isn't necessarily even just for these summer months, just in general— what are going to be our protocols for vehicle safety? Because we do see a lot, especially in the summer months but all year round really, pet owners who just like forget their dogs in the car, leave the car off, windows are up, and we've seen how fast those temperatures can increase in vehicles.

Yeah, definitely. I can't tell you how many times I've gone like to the grocery store for groceries and I'll park and a dog will just be in the car next to me, like, with the car running. And so many pet owners don't know, like, your cars are not made to idle with your AC on. So if you were to sit in that car idling for 30 minutes, you would feel how hot it ends up getting in there, even with your AC running, because they're not made to idle like that. Which is why a lot of people, like, when you see, um, like, departments, they're going to be in, like, cars that were made to idle, like, Ford Explorers and Tahoes and things like that, that they have better— I wouldn't say climate control, but they have better climate control and are made to idle like that, whereas a lot of cars aren't, and that AC ends up turning a little bit more warmer. So they think, oh well, I've set it to 60, but it really is 70 in there because it starts warming up the longer it's idled there. Um, so that would be one thing I would caution people on. Um, I know that a lot of times if a pet owner wants to take their dogs with them or run into the store, things like that, they're like, well, I can turn the car off and just roll my windows down, the dog's not going to jump out or anything. It is still extremely hot, and any airflow—

I wouldn't want to be standing outside for 15 minutes.

Any airflow that's coming in through those windows is still gonna be like— we're in Georgia, so it's like humid. It's like that breeze did absolutely nothing for me. It's not providing any relief for the dog. It's just moving around that hot kind of muggy air that's already in the car. And so that's not going to keep your dog cool either. And a lot of people forget, like, your dog is covered in hair. It's clothes they can't remove, and that's going to kind of retain that heat on them as well. So you do have to be mindful of each dog. I might be more willing to put a dog that is, you know, a shorthair like a GSP in the back of my car for 10 minutes with the windows down than I would put like a Great Pyrenees or a Husky with like a double coat in my car. Not that these are necessarily working breeds, but you know, the big, long, double-coated dogs that have all this hair, I would not even consider consider leaving them in there. I'd be like, nope, I'm gonna take you home and then I'll come back out, or, or something like that. Um, but that would be kind of my look on that is, you know, check your heat alarms, or don't take your dog with you if you're just making a grocery stop. Like, you can come back out later, you can freaking Instacart it. Um, you do not need to put your dog at risk. If it's unnecessary risk at that.

Yeah, absolutely. Um, so is there any like item that you would suggest? Because obviously our LE guys, they have heat alarms they can purchase. Is there anything similar for the civilian side, for pet side, or just in general, just use your best, your best wisdom? And if it's too hot for you to be outside, it's too hot for them.

I'm extremely lucky that if my dogs come with me here, I'm in the car with them while I'm here. I try not to run into stores or anything if they're in the cars, even if they're crated, or even if they're free in the car with me. Which, by the way, you should always have your dog in a crate, um, in the car.

CCU rule number one.

CCU rule number one, exactly. Um, I mean, just not even because dogs can be aggressive and get out and hurt people, but also, you know, it's like if you get into a car crash or they distract you while you're driving, like, that's a whole nother story.

I'm not sure the math, but it's like they become like 500-pound projectile or something. Like, I saw that, like, they'll go straight through the windshield.

It's actually awful. It really is. But, but with that, like, I'm gonna be in the car with my dogs, and then when I get here, I get them, and then thankfully they can be inside with me in the AC. Um, and I think— feel like it's the same thing for a lot of people. They're just taking their dogs places because they don't want to leave their dogs at home, or You know, maybe they work with their dogs, their dogs come with them places. You're just putting them in unnecessary risk by leaving them idling in a car.

That was really great. I really appreciate you joining me on this episode, kind of going over these heat protocols as we get into the even hotter months of the year, which I dread considering it's already hit 97 in the last 7 days. So we're just getting hotter and hotter. Deb, thank you so much for joining me today. If you have any other questions, don't forget everything's always linked below. You can feel free to follow us on our social media accounts. Sign up for our email newsletter. You'll get first access to all of our upcoming events, deals, everything like that. And we will see you guys Tuesday for our short set. Make sure you implement some of these heat protocols if you are not already, and we will see y'all next week. Aah!