Most important remember to contact your veterinary should you see any of these symptoms:

• Sunken eyes
• Glassy eyes 
• Lethargy
• Loss of appetite
• Dry mouth
• Depression

July Tip from the “The Dog Guy”:  Remember if you want your pets to be cool, keep them cool!

• Remember that the food and drink offered to your guests may be poisonous to pets. Simply remember that the snacks enjoyed by your human friends and you should not be a treat for your pet.  Any change of diet, even for one meal, may give your dog severe digestive ailments, cause choking, or cause allergies to flare up.

• Keep your pets on a leash and supervised.  No matter how friendly your pet may be it is better not to excite your pet by having them chase and run around guests at your party/barbecue.  It is particularly safer to not have your pet play chase with the children during a party.  Even, if they do this with their own family’s children.

• Avoid allowing your pet to hang out around the barbecue area or pits; due to hot charcoal, coals, and fire. 

Here are some tips for keeping your dog safe during the hot summer months (younger and older dogs are very sensitive to extreme heat):

• Pets can get overheated quickly, so give them plenty of fresh, clean water when it’s hot outdoors. Make sure your pets have a shady place to get out of the sun, such as trees, umbrellas (metal) and/or a small play pool (2-4 inches of water).  Keep them indoors when it’s extremely hot.

• Never leave your animals alone in a parked vehicle. “On a hot day, a parked car can become a furnace in no time—even with the windows open—which could lead to a fatal heat stroke.”

Holiday fireworks and other patriotic fanfare is often a frightful experience for dogs. The loud noises can hurt their sensitive ears.

Frightened dogs have different reactions: some tremble at their owners’ feet, others retreat to a hiding place, some try to run off (traveling for miles), and others display bizarre behavior.  Under such circumstances, ordinarily well-behaved pets may become aggressive, destructive and/or unpredictable.

Here are some precautions you can take to help your pets:

• Recommend a safe and confined area indoors such as a crate or the bathroom shower.  Playing soft music helps settles nerves and drowns out the fireworks.

• Never leave your pet alone in the house to free roam; use a kennel or dog run area outside to house your pet during this holiday time.

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Teaching your dog to come to you immediately is arguably the most important rule you can enforce. This may save her life someday, especially if she were about to run into a busy street. Although you may be furious and frustrated, never get angry at her when she wanders away from you. It may deter her from returning. When she does come back, give her a ton of praise – lots of pets and “good dog.”

Your well-mannered friends usually don’t barge into your house and sit down in the family room unless you’ve invited them over and welcomed them in. Expect the same from your dog. Only allow her in the house and on your furniture if she is invited by you specifically.

Some of my clients have told me that their friends won’t come over because the dog gets all over them. Teach your dog to stay on a dog bed when guests arrive. This will impress your guests and keep your dog off of them and the couch they will be sitting on. Take the privilege of getting on the couch away for a while and give it back slowly, periodically and always on your terms.

Sometimes potty-ing in the house and yard is confused with “marking”. When a dog marks he is leaving his information on whatever he has peed on. Dogs smell it and learn a lot about the dog who left the scent. For both instances, take away all roaming of the house for three weeks, then allow very limited amounts of supervised roaming. Teach your dog to stay on a dog bed in the house for extended periods of time. When you cannot supervise him, put him in his crate, outside or in the dog run. Be sure to get your carpets cleaned by a professional that specializes in pet stains and odor to ensure that your dog doesn’t go back to mark his spots again once he regained roaming privileges.

“Not true, just takes longer and the older they are often the longer it takes for control to turn to good habit. Sometimes you never get the good habit but have to remind regularly. It depends on the behavior. Mind you, it takes only a few repetitions of a bad habit for a dog of any age to learn it” Martin Deeley.

Digging is a natural activity for dogs. They do it to play, to keep busy when they are bored, and often to get cool or warm by curling up in the freshly dug bed. However, digging generally does not fit well within our lifestyles. I have seen thousands of dollars worth of damage at many of my client’s homes where their dog has destroyed the landscaping. Your dog can only be taught not to dig in your yard when you are there to teach and reinforce the rule. This is very difficult since most dog owners are gone the majority of the day.

I highly recommend that you build a dog run, or an enclosed area of the yard that can be built out of wood, decorative fencing or ready-made. This will at least isolate the digging. The enclosure should have water, toys, a dog house, and shade. Ideally, the ground surface should be either synthetic turf or pea gravel.