Beach Dangers For Your Dog

Don’t worry, you don’t have to spend your day staked on the beach and watching for dangers, but if you take a few precautions before going, then it means you can truly relax and enjoy your time with your canine companion. You can both stay safe and have the best day together without worrying too much about anything else. 

Drinking seawater is not good for dogs, just like it isn’t good for people either. The high salt content tends to wreak havoc on the digestive system as the body works to quickly absorb it. It can quickly cause a severe level of dehydration, and your pooch can become quite ill. Symptoms will only tend to last as long as it takes to rehydrate them, but this can be a slow process, and can even be fatal if the dehydration isn’t resolved quickly. Signs that your pup has been drinking seawater include:  

For most cases of seawater intake, you can feed them plenty of water to help reduce the symptoms until they are properly hydrated again. Given plenty of fresh water, they’ll tend to want to drink because dehydration will make them thirsty. If they don’t start to recover after some water, you should take a trip to your vet. You may not know what to do if your dog has beach diarrhoea. You should clean up after them so other dogs and people don’t come into contact with them, and take them home to monitor.  

The best way to stop your pup from getting dehydrated from drinking seawater is by making sure you bring along plenty of fresh water to drink at the beach. The more water you have available to them, the less likely they are to feel the need to drink seawater instead. You can bring along their own source of clean water and better yet, you can even keep it nice and cool with the KONG Travel Water Botttle. It even has a bowl so you can make sure your pooch stays hydrated.  

An unseen danger of having a day out is the temperature, and it can be hard to know when it’s too hot to take your dog to the beach. If you go on a nice breezy day, you may not have to worry too much, but most trips to the beach are on nice hot days. While you can cool off quite easily, your pup may have a harder time with a thick coat that’s for keeping them nice and warm. Luckily, if you come prepared, there are several things you can do to keep them cool throughout your visit. Doggy cooling mats are a great summer accessory, especially if your pooch likes to lie in the hot sun.  

They work by reacting to pressure, and the moment your pooch lies down or stands on it, it will quickly start to cool them off. They’re easy to bring along with you, you can fold up a cooling mat like the Rufus & Rosie Pet Cooling Mat and bring it along to make sure your pup has somewhere nice and cold to relax. There are also different cooling clothes you can get for your beloved pet, including collars and coats. The Ancol Cooling Vest Small can help to prevent overheating. While it might seem odd to put another layer on your pup in the heat to keep them dry, cooling vests are designed to absorb water and stop your pup from getting too hot. The layer of the vest closest to the skin remains dry, while the outer layers of the vest stay damp and cool.  

If you think your pup is getting too hot, get them out of the sun and make sure they drink plenty of water. Overheating can cause them to become disoriented and unwell, and if left too long, they can lose consciousness, or it can even be fatal.  

While you can let your dog off lead on the sand and be able to keep track of them, one of the biggest unknowns at the beach is the sea itself. With constantly changing tides and waves that can change as quickly as the weather, you should never let your pup go into the water unsupervised. If the sea is too rough for you, it’s likely too rough for your dog. Even if they are a stronger swimmer than you, if they get into a spot of trouble, you won’t be able to help them. If your pup is a water baby and darts straight into the sea, be sure that you can be right there with them. If the waves are too rough, keep them on lead so they can’t run off into water they won’t be able to swim in. 

While you may be able to look at the waves and tell when it’s too rough for your dog, there are other factors that come into play that you can’t always see. The strength of the tide is something that you often can’t tell until you’re in the water yourself, which is why it’s important to always accompany your dog to the water. You also need to be aware of when the tide is expected to come in and go out, as the beach can change a lot during the times. You may think you’re relaxing in a nice quiet little pocket of beach that you can have all to yourself but when the tides come in, many of these are cut off from the main shore and you can quickly find yourself surrounded by the ocean. Make sure you always check the tide times and forecast before you plan your day at the beach so you and your beloved pet can stay safe.  

Throughout the summer months, we hear a lot about how hot the pavements can get and how it can be dangerous to walk your dogs when it’s too hot out. If you’ve ever touched the back of your hand to test if the pavement is too hot, you may want to do this at the beach as well. The beach can often be a little cooler with the sea breeze, but on days where there isn’t much wind and the sun is nice and high, the sand can get just as dangerous to walk on. It may not retain heat as well as asphalt but as your pooch walks, they tend to sink in a little and that movement can really impact the contact time they have with the hot sand on their paws.  

Protecting their paws should be something you consider before you go to the beach. You can choose to spend time on the nice cool, wet sand in the shade to avoid stepping on the sand too much. Even just relaxing on a towel and creating a physical barrier between their paws and the sand can help. Just like we put on suncream before we go to the beach and reapply throughout the day to maintain protection, you should be doing this to your pup’s paws as well. The heat can dry your pup’s paws out over time, even if the sand isn’t too hot to step on, as it can still cause that dryness. Keeping them protected means reapplying a balm like The Spa Cracked Paw & Nose Balm to keep their skin from drying out too much. The heat, the sun and the salt water can dry out their skin, so be sure to keep them moisturised to prevent injuries. 

Instead of being surprised by any of these risks and trying to counteract them after they’ve made an impact, thinking ahead and putting things in place to protect your pets from them means you can have a fun day out with your pooch. Find everything you need for a relaxing and fun-filled beach trip with your pup in store and online.