Walking your dog in the Spanish summer heat

The Spanish summer is not a seasonal inconvenience for a dog: it is the only time of year when a badly planned walk can kill it. That is worth saying plainly at the start, because most of the canine heatstroke cases that veterinary clinics treat between June and September happen on walks that seemed perfectly normal to the person holding the lead.

Why a dog copes with heat far worse than you do

Dogs barely sweat. They have sweat glands in their paw pads and little else, so their main cooling mechanism is panting: pushing air across the tongue and the airways to evaporate moisture. That system works reasonably well at thirty degrees in dry air, and rather badly at thirty degrees in high humidity — because if the air is already loaded with water, evaporation stalls.

This produces a consequence that surprises a lot of people: an August afternoon in Barcelona at thirty-one degrees and seventy percent humidity punishes a dog harder than a dry thirty-seven inland. The thermometer does not tell the whole story.

Some dogs also start at a built-in disadvantage. The brachycephalic breeds — French bulldog, pug, boxer, English bulldog — have compressed airways and their panting is far less efficient. Black or dark-coated dogs absorb more radiation. Older dogs, overweight dogs and dogs with heart conditions regulate worse. And puppies do not yet regulate fully at all.

The seven-second rule

It is the most useful test there is and it costs nothing: put the back of your hand on the asphalt and count. If you cannot hold it for seven seconds, your dog cannot walk on it.

The detail almost everyone misses is the lag. Asphalt stores heat for hours and releases it slowly, so at ten at night it can still be above what paw pads tolerate even though the air has cooled. In Córdoba, where the highest temperatures on the peninsula have been recorded, this is not a theoretical precaution: there are July nights when the pavement in the centre is still burning past eleven.

The signs of heatstroke

Learn to recognise them, because the margin between "he's hot" and "veterinary emergency" is measured in minutes:

• Very intense, noisy panting that does not ease when you stop.
• Gums and tongue an intense red — or the opposite, pale.
• Thick, sticky drooling.
• Staggering, disorientation or weakness in the back legs.
• Vomiting or diarrhoea, sometimes with blood.
• Collapse.

If they appear: immediate shade, cool — not iced — water to drink if the dog can, and wet the armpits, groin and paw pads with lukewarm water, which is where the blood vessels run closest to the surface. Do not plunge the animal into very cold water: the abrupt vasoconstriction makes the picture worse. And go to the vet even if the dog seems recovered, because the kidney and clotting damage shows up afterwards.

How the week gets reorganised

The real adaptation is not "leave a bit earlier". It is splitting the day in two and accepting that for three months the routine is a different one:

1. A long outing at dawn. Between seven and nine, depending on the city. It is the only moment when the ground has had the whole night to cool.
2. Short, functional outings during the day. Just enough for necessities, along shaded pavement, with no exercise.
3. A second long outing at night. From ten or half past ten in the south; somewhat earlier on the northern coast.

In Seville this is not a recommendation but established practice: between May and September nobody walks between eleven and nine, and anyone living there with a dog accepts it the way they accept air conditioning.

Tricks that work, and tricks that do not

These work: always carrying water and a folding bowl; choosing routes with continuous tree cover instead of stretches of intermittent shade; replacing part of the physical exercise with scent games at home, which tire a dog thoroughly without heating it; wetting the chest and legs before going out; and using natural ground — earth, grass, pine litter — wherever possible, because it sits several degrees below the asphalt.

These work less well than people believe: cooling vests, which help only in dry air and only if re-soaked often; and shaving the dog, which in double-coated breeds removes the insulation that also protects against heat, and exposes the skin to sunburn.

What to do if you cannot change your own timetable

Here is the real problem many people have: the dog needs to go out at dawn and you start work at seven. No trick solves that — it has to be delegated. A professional walk in the good band of the day is, in summer, considerably more than a convenience: it is the difference between an animal that exercises and one that spends three months going out only for the bare minimum.

It is also worth saying so explicitly to the walker. A professional working in the peninsular south already reorganises their entire diary in June, but it pays to agree the time band in writing, along with what happens on days under an extreme-heat warning.

The summary

Heat is not negotiated. It is planned for. Check the ground with your hand before leaving, look at the humidity and not just the thermometer, carry water always, and accept that from June to September the good walk happens at dawn or after dark. A dog cannot tell you it has had enough: it keeps walking behind you until it falls.