Keeping Your Dog Cool In The Summer Heat

Hi, this is Rita Hogan and welcome to the Dogs Are Individuals podcast. I'm a clinical canine herbalist and I've been practicing for over 20 years. This podcast is all about your dog.

Through an herbal lens.

So let's get to it and dive right in.

Hi everyone, welcome back to the podcast. It is officially summer. It is hot and it's been abnormally hot here in the pnw, the Pacific Northwest where I'm recording this right now, Very, very hot. I even went out and bought myself one of those quirky little blue and white blow up pools about 8ft wide and 27 inches tall. And I've been plunging in it and it has been fantastic. Dogs are enjoying it. We're having a good time. Yeah, we need a little extra cooling and so I thought why not do an episode about cooling things down, cooling you down, cooling your dogs down, getting the temperature down, getting people and dogs more comfortable. So let's do this. One thing I do want to do is thank my new sponsor to the Dogs Are Individuals podcast. That is Fido Bone Broth. Fido's Bone Broth. Fido Phyto, Fido, Fido's Bone Broth. Love those ladies. And yes, I did help them formulate their bone broths, their, their mobility formula. I did not help them formulate their regular, their simply bone broth, but I did help them with mobility, longevity and digestion blends. And I'm pretty excited about them. I'm going to carry them in my store pretty soon when I get back from my conference and traveling out to the east coast for about a week as well after my conference and gonna have some fun with my bestie. Let's dedicate this episode to my bestie, May. Yeah. So mobility Phyto's Bone Broth. Let's talk about it really quick since we're talking about cooling foods. So bone broth in general is on the warming side, right? It's a little on the warming side. Their bone broth is beef bone broth, grass fed grass, finished beef bone broth. But the herbs that we have added to it, the Solomon seal root, the small amount of alfalfa, the rose hips, those are all nice and cooling. There's a wee bit of organic ginger in there. Everything's organic. There's marshmallow root is organic, the alfalfa is organic, rosehips is organic, the ginger root is organic. The Solomon's seal is not organic because it's not a highly cultivated herb and don't have to worry about it being sprayed. So it's more on the wild crafted side. So these herbs are cooling and they're moisturizing and they help with tired, dry joints, dried out musculoskeletal system. So that's why I love the Fido's mobility Beef bone broth. So those ladies do a good job and I am super excited for them to be on the podcast. You know, the mobility bone broth is. I told you I was going to go over the different formulas they've got. But you know, Solomon seal definitely supports connective tissue and alfalfa helps maintain bone health. And marshmallow lubricates the joints and cools things down. Alfalfa is cooling as well. Rose hips is cooling. It's anti inflammatory. It's an, it's called, I like to call it the warm dogs. Turmeric rosehips is just lovely. And then a little ginger root for circulating the formula. So this is a good one. Give it a try. Okay, let's talk about cooling herbs and foods. So I am a warm person and as I said, I'm going out to the east coast tomorrow. Flying out there, I'll be traveling all day and when I get there and wake up on Friday morning, it's going to be hot and it's going to be damp, it's going to be humid. So I have some concerns. So I've been doing everything I can to think about cooling my body down while I'm there. I haven't been in the humidity for a long time. I've been in the dry heat like in Vegas, but I have not been in the humid heat in a long time. And I feel like it raises my blood pressure and it definitely raises my heart rate. I don't like it, but I'm going, so how does one cool down? How do we cool our dogs down and how do we cool ourselves down? Oh, and before we get into it, I just want to say two days ago in the morning, it was still hot. It was super hot still in the morning. It was in the 80s. I saw a woman walking her little tiny dog across the pavement. She could have easily picked it up. And the little dog was hopping and you know, kind of skipping and the light turned. I couldn't stop. But people don't walk your dogs on the pavement in this heat. If you're going to do it, make sure they have heat proof boots on or little dogs just pick them up until they can get on the grass because it's too hot. They're going to burn their little pawpaws. So sometimes you think it's, it's logical. But no, it's not. So that's okay, you know, but it's not okay for that little pop. So do what you can. Don't burn their feet. I was hot. I was hot. And that's what we are talking about. I was hot under the collar. I wasn't wearing. So how do we cool things down? Two of my faves, and I've talked about this before, I'm sure. Cucumbers, organic cucumbers. Don't buy conventional cucumbers. They're toxic, they're made with crap water, they're gross, and their energy is completely off. And if you don't believe me with that one, that's fine. You don't have to believe in that kind of stuff. But for those of you that do, will know what I'm talking about. Get an organic cucumber, okay? Slice it up, put it in your dog's water on the bottom of the bowl. Or make cucumber water overnight, let them sit in the water, take the cucumbers out. It'll be nice and cooling. Cucumber water is just fabulous. And cucumbers as treats, they're what's called a refrigerant. So it will bring the temperature down. We want to do that. Now for those of you that are eating watermelon right now, which is me, ding, ding. I've been eating those little organic personal watermelons. They're lovely. They're tiny and super sweet and yummy. And they have seeds. I'm not a seedless watermelon person. Don't be a seedless watermelon person. Get those seeds, Take them, Just, you know, take them, spit them in a cup, whatever you do want. Just rinse them off and then let them dry. And you can put those in the water on the bottom of your dog's bowl. You can put them on the bottom of your drinking glass. I know that some people are like, wait, she said spit them into a cup. Okay? Do what you got to do. You can, you can rinse them off, okay? Make you have a cup so it's your own, okay? Those are your watermelon seeds. Your dog doesn't care. So, but rinse them off, don't give em to strangers, okay? Keep it in house, Keep it in house. But however you wanna get the seeds out, you could take em out with a, you could take em out with a, like a butter knife too if you wanted to. But get those seeds and you wanna use those seeds in the bottom of the water, okay? And it will cool the water off as well. And you can then after you get done using those seeds, you can actually dry them again, rinse them off, dry them again, and powder them. And they're full of nutrition. So. And you can give them to your dog or you could put them in your smoothie. See, I mean, the gifts just keep on giving. So watermelon seeds and cucumbers. Try to buy organic watermelons when possible. So other foods that bring down temperature. Asparagus, you know, chard, broccoli sprouts. Sprouts in general, radish sprouts are a little warming, but broccoli sprouts, sunflower sprouts, different types of sprouts are nice and cooling. I love asparagus. I love to eat asparagus. You can give your dog asparagus as treats. Blueberries, blackberries, those are quite good. And, you know, in the comparing berry to berry, strawberries are more warming than blueberries. Okay. Compared to cherries are warming compared to blueberries and blackberries. Marionberries are more warming than blackberries, even though they look like each other. So. But any of the berries are gonna be nice and cooling compared to something that's super warming. But if you wanna go down the line of energetics, and if you don't know what energetics is, see my energetics course@canineherbalism.com and so berries in general are good. You can do pineapple for those cool dogs. You can do mango. You can do papaya, little pieces. Melon in general, watermelon, honeydew, cantaloupe. Those are nice summer fruits that are very high in water and nice and cooling. Grapes are nice and cooling for added hydration. You can add coconut water to your dog's water. You can drink coconut water. It really helps you hydrate your cells. And drinking enough water is super important when it's hot out, I think that, you know, when you add, when you add, start adding herbs that cool. Okay, so there's lots of herbs that cool. You can cilantro, the mint family. So spearmint, peppermint. I like plantain, marshmallow root. Those are nice and cooling. I think that, you know, and they don't need to be in large amounts, right? They definitely don't need to be in large amounts. Other herbs that have definitely a cooling effect is lavender. You can do lavender water. You can do lavender infusion. Rose, rose water, rose hips, hibiscus. Hibiscus is lovely, like mint waters. You can do that, too. I think that there are chamomile, chamomile okay. Chamomile is nice for cooling things down and relaxing. You can even do citrus. Okay. Citrus can do like lime juice. Fresh squeezed lime can help cool. And you can make ice cubes with a lot of different fruits and veggies and cucumbers and things like that. You can get Creative on page 110 of the Forever Dog Life by Rodney Habib and Dr. Karen Becker. They have great recipes for antioxidant popsicles. And, you know, they mention herbs and spices. You can use some of the herbs that I've mentioned, berries, sprouts. I think that, you know, you could do things in teas like do a chamomile tea with different herbs and spices in it. I think that you could use more cooling. You could even put proteins in there if you want to. You could do some haddock or cod, which is cooling for those dogs that can handle pork, I find it more cooling. So you can get creative if you want, you can make them out of watermelon rinds. Not rinds, but watermelon fruit. Right. My little, my little pug used to love to just gnaw on the rind in. Let's see, page 109. They have lycopene liquors, 2 cups of watermelon cubed, optional kefir or yogurt. Or you could do raw goat's milk and two fresh basil leaves. Now, basil is a little on the warming side, but you could switch that out for mint if your dog is on, like, your dog is actually warm. For those of you that have like chickweed or cleavers in your yard, you can put that in a blender and mix it with hot water, let it cool and use it as a rinse for your dog to help cool them off. You can even use the cucumber water to help cool your dogs off. So there's lots of ways to get crafty and cool your dog down. Now, if you're looking at tremella mushroom, which I'm going to speak about, I believe next week on the podcast, tremella is nice and cooling. So you can add that to, you could make, you could add that to bone broth. You could add that as a, like a mushroom broth. You can use the extract quite, quite cooling. And then there's the flip side of everything. You know you want to. If your dog is getting very hot in the summer and you're trying to bring down their heat index because they're panting all the time, you want to look at, are you feeding them things that are ultra warming, you know, are you feeding them lots of ginger? Are you feeding them rosemary? And yes, dogs can have rosemary. So don't freak out. Are you feeding them extra turmeric? You know, what are you feeding them that might be way too hot? So you want to look at their diet. Are you giving them lamb every day in the summer? Not a good protein for summer, in my opinion. If it's the only thing your dog can tolerate, that's a different story. But even, you know, even some nice cool dogs can't handle those ultra heating proteins like venison and lamb and wild salmon in the, in the summer months when it's super hot out. So look at that flip side. Look at those proteins that you might be giving your dog. And there is a nice list on my canine herbalist site under the shop at the bottom, digital downloads, you can find the my energetics list. So. And you can download that list. If you want to know what's neutral, what's warm, what's cooling. I would stick to neutral, to cooling foods. If your dog is having a hard time in this heat and you want to help bring down their, their heat index in their body, some dogs will have a harder time, some dogs won't. You know, summer is rough sometimes and like hawthorn leaf and flowers, nice and cool. Cooling as well. And it supports the heart. So that's a nice herb to give. And like I said before, you know, use waters to help them drink and cool down. You know, the cucumber water, the watermelon and then coconut water. You could infuse coconut water with cucumber. Again. Get crafty. Get crafty. Cranberry. Cranberry. You can infuse cranberries if you want. That is nice and cooling. I did mention hibiscus. Hibiscus is lovely. If your dog will eat lettuce, romaine, lettuce is nice and cooling. And again, you can do rose water. You can infuse rose petals in water and do rose water. That's nice and cooling too. And then if you, I mean, if you are crafty with the blender, you can blend up with extra water. You can puree asparagus and give it to your dogs over their food. That's a nice one. Okay. And I'm just thinking, I'm a big cleavers fan. Some of my cleavers around here are only in flower. They haven't went to seed yet. So I do a lot of rinses. And then you can get more like physical hands on. You could use nice cooling Wet towels to help bring your dog's temperature down. You know, cool wet towels. I love those frog towels. I don't know if you know about those, but they're like frog towels. They're cooling towels. They're made out of a fabric that really kind of holds the cool. They can help bring your dog's temperature down pretty quickly too. And it feels good. Or you can let, you can get your dog a blow up pool. There are pools that have reinforced materials that their little claws can't go through or have a hard time going through. And you can fill that up and let your dog do a little doggy paddle, right? A little doggy paddle never hurt anyone. Then, you know, there's those fancy cooling mats. They're called chill mats. I believe those are really nice because your dog can lay on it and cool down. So instead of the floor, they lay on their little cooling surface. You can also get like little ice vests for your dog that, you know, if your dog really has a high heat index and they're really uncomfortable, you can get an ice vest for them and you can wrap them in this little thin ice vest that. But I mean, you want to be careful with those. Make sure they're not too cold. And I would definitely put like a little layer of protection between the ice vest and your dog's skin. Okay? So just use caution for that. Like with that, don't give your dog an ice bath, okay? Don't do it unless we have dire. You have like a dire need. I know that when I actually had to do that once, I was stuck on this old like two way road going into Escanaba, Michigan, and I was in my red pickup truck and there's hardly ever any traffic on that road. And that's why I took it. Sure enough, they had the road blocked off and I had to sit and wait in traffic forever. And I didn't even know there was ever that many cars on that road. I mean, you hardly saw one. But I was sitting waiting in the, in the traffic and my little pug was, he was overheating. It was terrible. And I was starting to get panicked. And then I was like, oh my God. You know, I had a litter box for him in the car because he was litter box trained. And so I took the litter and I threw it out the window. And it was pine litter. So don't freak out. I didn't, you know, throw out something non biodegradable. I would never do that. But I filled the litter box with my ice from my drink and my cold water, and I had to put him in it. I had to make him lay in the ice and in the water. And it did help, and it bought us some time so I could get him to air conditioning, and he was fine. But there was a time there when I was just completely freaking out about it because I obviously didn't have what I needed. And I never thought that we would get stuck in traffic on the Highway 8 into Escanaba, Michigan. So that one was hard. But I. At least I did have some ice, but it was totally scary. He was having a hard time breathing, and I was like, oh, my God, I'm going to kill my bug. But didn't happen. So be well. That just goes to say, you know, be prepared. If you have a dog and you're traveling with your dog in the hot summer, have stuff be prepared. And I can't kind of emphasize that enough. Be prepared. And, you know, worst case scenario, you can pull over by some body of water, like a lake, and have dip your dog in the lake to help cool them down. And, you know, dip yourself, too, if you're so inclined. One thing I didn't mention is, you know, the question, Rita, how do I know if my dog is having a problem in the heat? Well, excessive panting can be one of them. You know, like panting that worries you in your core. Like, that's a. That's a lot of panting. You know, some dogs can be a little confused or disoriented if they are about to have a heat stroke, because heat stroke is real. Dogs do have them and, you know, kind of like incoordination, Muscle issues definitely can be from heat strokes. Some dogs can have seizures. Some dogs can vomit and have diarrhea. You can take your dog's body temperature, and I think, like, if your dog's Temperature is over 105, you definitely need to cool them down. You want to pay attention. And I don't think I need to cover, you know, putting your dog in a hot car on this podcast. But please don't do it. Don't go there. And like I said, if you're going to put your dog in a car in the heat, you're going to drive around. Make sure that if you're driving anywhere where you can get stuck and nothing's going to be around you, you need to have things to be prepared that your car breaks down for yourself and your dog. Okay? Make sure you have things in there. Travel with a cooler full of ice, you know, water and things that you need. Drinking water is Very important for dogs. Okay. So you want to have some water and some ice and some towels so that you can help your dog. Maybe even like a little travel umbrella so that you guys can get out of the heat while you wait to get your car repaired. And I know I'm taking it too far. I'm taking it too far, it's true. But you do need to be prepared. And if you don't have air conditioning in your house, and some people don't, I mean, most of the houses here right in the PNW Pacific Northwest, I'm about an hour south of Seattle, they don't have a lot of air conditioning here. I have one unit in the main part of the house. It's a heat pump, and I love it. But it doesn't do a lot. But it keeps the house bearable. There's certain parts of the house we really can't hang out in. Like my office gets really hot. It's not in my house, it's in a different building, but it's upstairs. And it can get pretty hot even though I have air conditioning downstairs. So, you know, some people don't have ac. So you can make what's called a swamp cooler. Now, I've never done this myself, but my idea of a swamp cooler is putting a wet rag and holding it up, not physically, but tying it up in front of a high powered fan. And then you get this like, lovely misty air. That's my idea of a swamp cooler. However, you can make a normal swamp cooler for about $30. You can go on YouTube and just YouTube making a swamp cooler and check out which one. Which method is good for you. But they're kind of cool to have if you do not have air conditioning. And they're very, again, very easy to make. So it takes, I would probably say less than 30 minutes to make and less than $30 to put together the parts to make one. But it can offer you and your pup some comfort during the hottest times of. Of the day. Now, I wouldn't be an herbalist if I didn't say go into the woods when it's hot. Because a lot of the heat problems are because we keep cutting down the trees. If the trees were here that we cut down, we wouldn't have such hot areas. You know, our yards wouldn't be so hot. And if you go in to the tree cover on a hot day, you'll notice that the temperature has dropped by a large margin. So if you get hot, get out of your house. Get out of your house and Go into the woods if you can do that. If it's something that's available to you. If you're in the desert, I'm sorry, you're out of luck. Build the swamp cooler. So I hope that I've helped you a little bit. Now I can say that I have seen organic cucumber water and cucumbers and watermelon seeds. Bring down watermelon seed water. Bring down panting. From extreme panting to zero panting in about 15 minutes. So don't forget, you know, and start early. Don't wait for the panting. Don't wait for the panting to come. It's kind of like getting ahead of your pain. Don't wait for the panting to come. Start early in the day for your dogs that are struggling in the heat, okay? And your elderly dogs, our geriatric dogs, they need a little more care than our spry little pups and, you know, young and middle aged dogs, dogs who have heart conditions need to have extra care in this type of heat. So be very mindful of those sweet babies, okay? And again, you know, hawthorn leaf and flower is a nice infusion. You can also use it as a tincture that helps support the heart and is also cooling. So you can use a bunch of the methods that I've talked about to bring down the temperature of your pup and yourself. You guys could share if you wanted to. How fun is that? I love sharing things with my dog, so. Well, I have dogs, dogs and my dogs do pretty well in the heat as long as they're in the house. I have bulldogs and pugs. They don't do well when they're outside, but in this, you know, 96 to 100 degrees weather, they go out for potty and come right back in. And like I said, it's not normal for them. Or we can get up. It doesn't get hot here right away. So we get our exercise in during the morning and then know by I would say 1:32 o' clock in the afternoon, it's going to start getting really warm until about 7 or 8 o' clock at night and then the temperature just drops. Where I live, it doesn't stay hot. I know you guys are jealous. I do get some cool breezes almost every night in the summer. Okay. So I hope that helps you cool down a little bit and have your pooches cool down when they get hot. I am a little apprehensive about going to the east coast and being in the humidity, so I'll let you know how that works out. I did buy Again, a misting fan and something to go around my neck. Make sure I got the frog towel packed. And I also have another handheld fan.

I have a hat.

I have a hat. I can't live without my hat in the summer. I just like to keep the sun off my face and have the option of taking my hat off or keeping my hat on. It's got a nice brim on it. And yeah, it's totally geeky. Probably, you know, could be classified as unattractive. Don't care. I'm at the age where comfort is more important to me than almost anything. So, yeah, I'll take a pick, you know, and for those of you on my social media, you'll be able to see the hat in all its glory. I'm on Instagram at Canine Herbalist, and I'm also on Facebook at Canine Herbalist. I have made an appearance on TikTok, and I am getting there. I just, I have to sit down and make a little content. It's. It's also. It's also grueling, but you got to do what you got to do. And I am going to see the more, you know, brought to you by the nautical dog, I think. Let's see, Billy Holcomb is going to be there. Rodney Habib, Dr. Karen Becker, Katie Woodley. I can't think of the other person. It might be. Barb Royal. I'm not sure, but. Oh, Angela Ardolino. Angela Ardolino. I am going to be at that conference this weekend. Looking forward to it. Hanging out with the two crazy cat ladies. I've turned into a crazy cat lady myself. I'm in love with my cats. I can barely get enough. Can't get enough, actually. Can't get enough of them. And I did recently find out that my one cat, Carl, is into turkey tail mushrooms. Now, as you know, Real Mushrooms is a sponsor of this particular long format podcast. And thank you, Real Mushrooms. So I do tremella and turkey tail mushroom, and then I alternate with chaga and lion's mane and I put them in my teas. I do dandelion root tea, and sometimes I do like yarrow tea, just depending. And then I'll do maybe a decaf black and some green matcha. Every now and then I get decaffeinated matcha and I love that. But I will mix the mushrooms in with those. And so my turkey tail mushroom powder is sitting on the spoon this morning, and who comes over and starts licking it? Carl. Very strange, because cats don't normally like mushrooms. Mushroom powders. I mean, you can give them like a glycerate or, you know, a tincture of mushroom. But I never thought I'd saw, I would never, I never thought I would see a cat lick turkey tail mushroom. And sure enough, he's licking it and I just let him, I let him eat as much as he wanted and then he was done. So maybe he needs a little turkey tail mushroom. I'm not sure. But yeah, I was using the Real Mushrooms brand. And again, thank you, thank you, thank you. Real Mushrooms. They've been a long term sponsor of this podcast, so we all need to thank them a little because you would not be hearing these rants without them for sure. And so I'm very much appreciative. But I was totally surprised with Carl's turkey tail. So, you know, you never know. Like tomorrow morning before my flight, I'll be making my tea and maybe Carl will come up and have a little more turkey tail. I don't know, maybe I'll offer it to him tonight, see what happens. I have raw fed cats and Oscar and Carl and I absolutely love them. Also, the people who have asked me about putting my podcast on YouTube, I'm contemplating it. Okay? I'm not saying I'm going to do it for sure, but I'm contemplating it. So know that I am thinking, I am trying to see, like how much that would complicate my life at this time. And I'm not positive, but it could happen in the future. It could happen. And those of you have that have questions you can write into the podcast. I will answer it here on live on the Pod. I'll get to it. I promise I will get to it eventually. And I'm working my way through people's questions. I'm going to answer a question along with talking a little bit about tremella mushroom in the next two episodes of the Pod. Before I leave you today, I do want to tell you that all of my courses on canineherbalism.com are now under courses at the top. I didn't realize that some of them weren't listed. Someone said, hey, where's your oral course for dental health? I'm like, it's there. No, it wasn't there. Maybe I dreamt it. I'm not positive. You know, it's just myself, Bree, my assistant, and Heather, who? Heather runs the store and ships things and is, of course, moral support, takes care of the horsey, which is just. I'm indebted to her for that. Horses are a lot of work, by the way. And some things fall into the cracks. So I need reminders. So if you see anything crazy, just send me an email. Let me know. I won't be offended. So everything is on there now. People can sign up for everything. And I just released my flea course, so my holistic all natural flea course, it's 35 smacks$35. It's worth its weight in gold. If you don't love it, your money back. Always with my courses and it's affordable. But it's everything you need to know about all natural flea care and I update it continuously so check that out. Canine herbalism.com thanks for listening to this.

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This will help me so much.

And remember, as a listener, I appreciate you much. Thanks to Resonant Media, my podcast production team. This podcast is produced by Drake Peterson and edited by Mike Fry. Any questions? Email the show, go to k9herbalist.com Click podcast contact in the menu and then fill out. Fill out that form and I'll answer any questions here online. Okay, so thank you so much for listening to this episode of Dogs Are Individuals Podcast and I'm going to talk.

To you in our next episode.

The content of this show is for educational and informational purposes only. It is not a substitute for veterinary care. This podcast doesn't constitute a provider patient relationship. As always, talk to your doctor, veterinarian, or healthcare provider first before starting anything new. And that includes herbs. I'm not a doctor and I don't treat disease or prescribe anything. I'm a traditional herbalist providing herbal support education only Regarding any products I may suggest the statements made regarding these products have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. The efficacy of these products has not been confirmed by FDA and research. These products are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease. All information presented here on the podcast is not meant as a substitute or alternative to information from your vet. Please consult your veterinary professional about potential interactions or other possible complications before using any product.