ARKANSAS, USA — In these dog days of summer, keeping our four-legged friends cool should mimic our escape from the heat.
"If you're too hot, they're probably too hot, and if you're too cold, they're probably too cold," Linda DeBerry with Best Friends Animal Society said. "In temperatures like this, if you're feeling muggy, they're feeling uncomfortable too."
DeBerry said heat can hurt pets the same way it hurts people.
"All the same things that we can feel if we get heat stroke, same symptoms kind of thing that dogs will show," DeBerry said.
According to DeBerry, some signs of heat exhaustion are pets acting lethargic, panting excessively, and having glassy eyes.
Justine Lentz with the Fayetteville Animal Shelter said she has seen these overheating signs in rescues. In May 2022, the shelter saved 13 dogs trapped in a hot car. Lentz says they still see several heat calls.
"We also field calls for animals left in vehicles, and that's probably the number one thing that I think sometimes people don't realize," Lentz said. "We take temperature readings that are easily well over 100 degrees because even cracking the windows and those types of situations, it doesn't provide enough airflow."
Recently, some local shelters have received concerns over the heat in their kennels. Fort Smith Animal Haven moved their dogs to a building without air conditioning.
"While there is no air conditioning in the kennel area, there are large Portacool fans, industrial fans, and an exhaust fan there to keep the air circulating," spokesperson Josh Buchfink said. "They are working hard to make sure the animals stay safe and cool."
DeBerry said shelters and rescues sometimes need to get creative to keep their furry occupants comfortable.
"[Shelters will] put big pieces of cardboard up on top of the kennels in the areas where the sun is coming through, or prop something up along the side to break the sun coming into the kennels," DeBerry said. "It takes everything we can think of to make the animals as comfortable as possible."
Even facing emergency situations, animal sanctuaries and shelters are doing the best they can in these doggone temperatures. During the holiday season in 2022, many shelters and rescues rallied together to house Springdale Animal Service's pets when a broken pipe closed their shelter.
"We've been swamped from the Fourth of July and the tornadoes, so a lot of our shelters are really suffering under a load of a lot more having to handle a lot more pets than they would normally have to at this time of year. So if you really want to help them: adopt, foster, volunteer, donate," DeBerry said.
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