I have been taking my dogs on a 1.5 mile walk in the afternoons. Temperature has been 100 and the dogs seem to be getting very hot. Are there any signs when a dog is getting in trouble with heat.

Thanks to all

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I would wait till late afternoon early evening. Morning works best for us. When the tongue starts hanging to the side, the time to stop is near.

Excessive panting (its tx they pant just going outside) watch how they carry themselves...dragging feet and sluggish maybe its time for a rest

Keep in mind the dog's normal body temperature is around 101F.

My observation is that under normal"self" exercise, they start getting uncomfortable around 91F.

We keep our's in air conditioning. Their exercise regimen starts around 5:00 a.m. and ends around 7:00 a.m. They go in the air conditioned kennel house and don't exercise again until around 11:30 a.m. This sessions ends around 1:00 p.m.

Night exercise starts around 7:00 p.m. and ends around 10:00 p.m.

When you see their head down, excessive panting, and stumbling...it's pushing the envelope. 100F is too hot for man and beast.

Hopefully someone will know the exact numbers but I believe it's dangerous for a dog to be running when the temp added to the humidity equals 130 or above. You can see that 80 degrees and 50% humidity is a bad number. the higher the temp etc the worse it can be. Right now is no time to be letting them run.

That is a good rule of thumb. One thing that I do is to look at the dogs pattern of breathing. Under normal circumstances a dog will pant in a rapid but even and normal fashion. This is good. The dog is exchanging heat through breath and taking cool air in through evaporation around the mouth. The key here is that the dogs mouth has to be wet first and foremost and also the rate and quality of breathing needs to be normal. If you start hearing grunting type breaths or the dogs breathing becomes uneven or labored, cool the dog off immediately. This will happen even before they get wobbly. Don't let it go that long or they are already too far in a lot of cases.

so how does this work with humidity at 90+. I've personally seen hounds run 8+ hrs at full speed with humidity at 100 and temps were in 80s. I'm not doubting the logic that theres a threshold but but I think its much higher than that. If so my dogs should be overheating every day within an hr (Houston humidity is as bad as back home in tn.)

We run them in NSTRA at any temperature, but there are always at least 4 water barrels in the field.

bloodshot eyes another sign of over heating

I used to train and guide quail hunts on the King Ranch. It gets hot down there and I have seen dogs die from heat stroke. If a dog starts getting weak in the back end and staggering you better get them cooled off quick. A dog cools through its tounge and when it gets to the point it cannot cool it is a chain reaction. The body temperature elevates rapidly.

If I was going to walk a dog when it is this hot I would take cold water with me. When the dog appears to be getting too hot apply water to their ears, under the neck, and a little on the belly.

At the first of the year when we started conditioning dogs to run in the heat we did this. We ran out of a truck. Run them for 5 minutes and then cool them off as previously described. Run them for 10 minutes and then cool them off. Then run them for 15 minutes, cool them off, and put them in the box.

I have never heard of a dog that froze to death. I know of many that died from heat stroke.

Thank you to everyone for comments and knowledge. Hope it might help others as we..

good thread

Lance you can also tell when their pads it that hot carpet and they leave the boat.

We run Bassett hounds and heat is one of the major reasons we do not run them in the summer. The other reason is snakes. We had one hound years ago before they had tracking collars literally hunt himself to death in the heat. He would not quit running a rabbit and finally had a kidney to rupture. We learned a hard lesson that day and changed our training habbits. I got 4 1/2 month old now he really seems to work better late in the evenings.

if dove hunting I keep a shallow cooler filled with icewater whenever she needs it I also don't let her roam much we stay in the shade next to the water and ice... my buddies are always saying "lets move 50yards over there... but with the water jugs, Ice, coolers and then all my stuff I just stay put and let the birds come to me. I work her in the summer with the Frisbee so she can build up a tolerance to the heat, also if your dog is fat or overweight its MUCH harder on them as well (just like people)

Hard to describe, but look at the dog's tongue when it's hanging out when he's hot.

There is a point where the dogs tongue will curl up around the edges near the tip, making a sort of bowl. If you see that, best shut it down.