A veterinarian in Maple Ridge, B.C. decided to make a point about how sweltering hot pets can get in vehicles.
Dr. Brian Walton of Dewdney Animal Hospital filmed himself spending 30 minutes in a parked car with the windows cracked open one inch. He started off in the car at 38.6°C and after 10 minutes, he said he wasn’t feeling particularly well. The body heat thermometer he had actually overheated so that he couldn’t get readings, and he had to use a different thermometer.
At the ten minute mark. (Photo Credit: Screen Shot)
“I’m sweating profusely,” said Dr. Walton. “It’s not evaporating off, so it’s not really cooling me down at all. It’s exhausting, and this is only 10 minutes.”
With five minutes left, temperatures were up to 68°C on the dashboard. The vet was feeling a bit disoriented, and later he said that he’d had to cut one part of explanation because he was “seriously rambling and barely coherent”.
Dr. Walton of course was sweating, but as the animal hospital mentioned on Facebook later, dogs can’t. “They cool themselves down by panting and can only cool themselves when the temperature is lower than the temperature of their body. As the video shows, temps can rise beyond the dog’s ability to cool in less than 2 minutes.”
Dr. Walton cooling down after 30 minutes. (Photo Credit: Screen Shot)
When Dr. Walton finally gets out, he says that people should never leave their pets in their vehicle, even for five minutes. “It’s not worth it,” he says in an exhausted voice after dripping after dunking his face in water.
Check out the video below, and this is definitely one of those experiments that you shouldn’t try at home.
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