Story from Startribune.com
Dennis Anderson: Heat kills 100 dogs
Dennis Anderson, Star Tribune
Published October 24, 2003 ANDY24
Along with limits of pheasants, many hunters departed South Dakota with heartaches last weekend.
Narrowly avoiding tragedy was Dr. Phifer Nicholson of Plymouth, whose yellow Labrador, Jack, was one of perhaps hundreds of dogs felled by heatstroke in the unusually warm first days of the South Dakota pheasant hunting season.
Some South Dakota veterinarians estimate that 100 or more Labrador retrievers, springer spaniels, English setters and other hunting dogs died in temperatures that at times exceeded 80 degrees.
Proving deadly were the animals’ heavy coats and inability to readily dispel body heat, combined with temperatures in grasslands and corn fields that were at times scorching.
Additionally, South Dakota’s abundant pheasants provided incentive enough for some dogs to work until they literally dropped.
Dr. Phifer Nicholson saved his dog.Jeff WheelerStar Tribune”I was afraid we would have a rash of these cases, and I tried to warn hunters to keep their dogs’ time in the field very short,” said Dr. Woody Franklin of Brookings (S.D.) Animal Clinic, where one Labrador retriever from Minnesota died last weekend.
Nicholson’s Labrador avoided a similar fate, perhaps because of his owner’s medical training. The 3-year-old Lab collapsed Sunday near Aberdeen, S.D., after only 30 minutes in the field.
“Suddenly he began panting and staggered and fell,” said Nicholson, a vascular surgeon. “His tongue turned a shade of purple and blue I’ll never forget. My initial reaction was to run him to water, but when I picked him up he was so limp he couldn’t breathe.”
Nicholson’s dog was one of many stricken by heatstroke. The pheasant opener annually draws approximately 145,000 hunters, including as many as 20,000 Minnesotans and their well-trained dogs, whose values can exceed $10,000.
With the season open only 45 minutes, a springer spaniel was carried by its owner into Dr. Eric Heath’s office in Winner, S.D. The dog’s temperature was 110 degrees — about 8.5 degrees above normal.
“Actually, the dog’s temperature might have been higher than 110. But that’s as far as my thermometer goes,” Heath said. The dog was euthanized.
Heath’s clinic treated 12 dogs for heatstroke last weekend. Four died.
“The problem,” said Dr. Sam Lukens, a Sioux Falls, S.D., veterinarian, “is that many of these dogs are overweight and out of shape. And even if they’re not, for every mile a hunter walks, their dog might run three miles. That, combined with the higher temperatures in tall grass and corn, can mean trouble.”
Life-saving actions
To help his young dog breathe, Nicholson elevated its lower jaw. Soon thereafter, ice from his hunting party’s coolers was laid on the dog, and water poured over him — but to no avail.
“Then we drove about seven minutes to a farmhouse, and during that time Jack stopped breathing once,” Nicholson said.
At the farm, Nicholson laid his dog in the shade and cooled him for about 10 minutes with a water hose before the animal’s tongue regained color.
“He recovered enough to stand and drink,” he said. “I put him in our air-conditioned truck, and when we drove home from Aberdeen Sunday night, we stopped twice. Both times he drank and urinated, which were good signs.”
But the danger that heat stroke poses to dogs extends beyond an animal’s initial collapse, veterinarians say.
“The after-care is very critical,” said Dr. Jill Butkovich of Safe Haven Small Animal Hospital in Mitchell, S.D., where eight dogs were treated last weekend for heatstroke, and two died. “Nearly 100 percent of these dogs experience a variety of problems the following day, because nearly every organ of the body is affected.”
Afflictions, she said, include kidney failure, permanent blindness and mental abnormalities.
“The biggest one we see, in almost every case, results from the lining of the intestine getting so hot that cells die and slough off,” Butkovich said. “Then the intestines start leaking fluid and the result is bloody diarrhea.”
That condition is called disseminated intravascular coagulation, Butkovich said.
On Monday, Nicholson’s Labrador wouldn’t eat and was tired, but drank and otherwise appeared healthy, Tuesday morning, however, the dog couldn’t stand and his temperature was 104.1 and rising.
The dog was taken to the University of Minnesota Veterinary Medical Center, where it was resuscitated with the help of intravenous fluids, including steroids and antibiotics.
Thursday, no worse, apparently, for the ordeal, the dog was back home in Plymouth. This weekend’s hunting trip to South Dakota has been canceled to let him recover fully.
“I learned a lot,” Nicholson said. “The most important thing is that, even after recovering from the initial collapse, and despite drinking and urinating, Jack was still severely dehydrated and nearly died.”
Other dogs weren’t as fortunate.
“The problem out here is that we’re a rural state, and it can take 30 minutes or longer for some of these hunters to get their dogs to a veterinarian,” said Dr. Cati Beaty of Lakeview Veterinary Clinic in Mitchell, S.D.
“By the time they get to us with a dog that has a 108-or 109-degree temperature, there’s not much we can do.”
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