TRAINING ARTICLES

KEEP YOUR COOL

On an e-list I'm on, someone asked how to help keep dogs cool at outdoor summer trials. I personally don't tolerate heat well, and neither do my dogs as they are kept mostly inside in the A/C during the summer months. I sent a list of ideas for keeping yourself and your dogs cool, and thought others might find this list of suggestions useful.

Some ideas to help keep your dogs and yourself cool:

1. I have a portable rechargeable power source that I can take with me to shows to plug in a floor fan, crate fans, or other small electrical appliances. It will also boost a dead battery, inflate a flat tire, recharge a cell phone, has a built in flashlight and the unit will quickly recharge from a vehicle DC plug. I got it from Amazon.com as they had the best prices, and free shipping. It’s made by Xantrex.
   
2. I take a cooler full of ice water with me wherever I go with my dogs in the summer. The ice melts, but the cooler will keep the dog's water cold all day.
   
3. Use space blankets to deflect sun and heat off crates and vehicles. You can get shade cloth in sizes to cover vehicles inexpensively from greenhouse supply stores like, EnviroCept Greenhouses.
   
4. Refill empty 2 liter soda bottles with water and freeze them. Place them around the edges inside your dog's crate and they can lie against them to keep cool. When the ice melts, you also have cold drinking water for both you and your dogs. Freeze them well ahead as it takes at least a full 24 hours for them to freeze solid.
   
5. You can make your own reusable and inexpensive ice packs by filling heavy gauge Ziploc freezer bags with a mixture of water and rubbing alcohol. The alcohol prevents the ice packs from freezing solid. The more alcohol you use, the less solid the ice pack will be. When my dogs get too warm, I hold an ice pack to their belly and to the bottoms of their paws to bring down their body temp. (Dogs sweat through their paws and this cools them down fast)
   
6. Make cooler bandanas and cool mats for yourself and your dogs using polymer crystals. There are instructions for making these at several sites on the web. You can also buy them, but they are inexpensive and so easy to make, and if they get too soiled, they are easy to replace. You can get the crystals at garden stores, but I suggest buying them online from Watersorb. Their medium polymer crystals have the dust removed, which prevents the mat or bandana from "sweating" polymer when you use it. Here's a few sites with instructions on how to make bandanas and mats: Smelly Jelly and CandleSoylutions. I have crate mats made out of denier nylon fabric, and the dogs seem to like these better than the ones made from cotton. They don't stay as wet on the surface, which they seem to appreciate. These also make good fund raisers for dog events.
   
7. Cooler coats
   
8. Pet Edge makes a crate fan with a cooler insert that works like old fashioned air conditioning. The insert is frozen, then snapped onto the back of the crate fan. When the fan is turned on, it draws air over the ice pack and cools it. You can buy additional cooler packs for long days in the heat and keep them "charged" in a cooler.
   
9. For yourself, get a spray bottle, fill it with ice water, and keep it in your cooler. A spritz of ice cold water on your face feels great when you are hot.

Hope some of these ideas help.

Be cool!!