Canine Heat Stress

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 feinted 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 retrieving 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.

Canine Heat Stress – Prevention

Although any dog may suffer from heat stress, certain dogs are more vulnerable. They include puppies and geriatric dogs. Overweight dogs are especially susceptible because the fat insulation reduces the dog’s ability to radiate heat. Dogs with a history of heat stress are short-nosed breeds like bulldogs and pugs, which normally have difficulty breathing and panting, but as the saying goes: “It can happen to you” – so look out. Dogs with cardiovascular or respiratory disorders may be more easily affected than other breeds. Some basic guidelines:

1. Never leave a dog in a closed automobile, an unventilated garage or other enclosure for any length of time in hot weather.

2. Kennels should have adequate ventilation to provide adequate air circulation in summer months.

3. When dogs are outdoors, some type of shade cover should be provided.

4. Avoid excessive exercise during hot weather.

5. Keep plenty of fresh drinking water available at all times for dogs.

Canine Heat Stress – Treatment

In heat stroke cases, high fever …

Should You Consider a Sugar Free Life Style? Part I

If you have a sweet tooth, a sugar free life style simple doesn’t make sense or does it? For you it makes the best sense. Perhaps the biggest reason to consider a shift in eating would be for your good health and to fight chronic health diseases, i.e. heart attack, stroke and diabetes. Although sweets add great taste and zest to your life, the empty calories are slowly killing you.

When you consider a sugar free life style, you come one step closer to becoming the best you that you can be. Why? By eliminating sugar and foods that become sugar in your gastrointestinal tract (GI tract), you will begin to feel like your old self within a matter of weeks. A brand new you will emerge. Most people feel bad daily without really knowing the cause. Most often, you feel bad because of your eating habits.

So it becomes pretty simple, change your eating habits and change the way you feel! Your decision to go sugar free can’t be just an “I’ll try it to see if it works” decision. To change your eating habits to a sugar free dietary program will require a quality decision on your part. You will need to determine if the change is right for you. Do research, read everything you can find about the benefits and then make your decision-one way or the other.

Your sugar free lifestyle, coupled with a daily caloric intake, will help you lose weight. America is overweight! Obesity has reared its ugly head even among middle school aged youngsters. Recent research has confirmed a direct correlation between the size of your waist to chronic heart diseases. Men with a waist size of larger than 39″ is at risk for heart disease and diabetes even more so than those with smaller waist sizes. So a really sensible plan in addition to a sugar free life style is a lower caloric intake. Part II of this article will discuss the daily caloric intake and how to determine the teaspoons (tps) of sugar you can consume each day.

When you consume more calories than you burn with your daily activities, your body stores these calories as fat. So the ideal situation is to burn all the calories you consume. A sugar free lifestyle goes hand in hand with a good daily exercise plan. Before you begin an exercise program, consult your physician to be sure you are healthy enough to exercise. The exercise and daily calorie plan will be discussed in a Part II article.

Yes, you should consider a sugar free life style. It will take some planning, you will need to be devoted to your plan but above all you will need to make a quality decision to stick with your sugar free life style plan. Maybe it is not too late to reverse the damage already done to your body. You may be able to get off some …