We broke a record!

And if you are sit­ting under this unre­lent­ing heat bub­ble your area prob­a­bly did, too.

Cen­tral Texas broke tem­per­a­ture records, log­ging the hottest July on record, heck, the ENTIRE state broke a record for the hottest July on record! 99%of Texas is expe­ri­enc­ing drought con­di­tions, with a large por­tion labeled Excep­tional Drought, which is the top-level, F5-tornado equiv­a­lent of drought. While break­ing records for heat and power con­sump­tion may be inter­est­ing, what about some ways to keep your French Bull­dog cool?

Let’s start with some basics. Click here to read a help­ful arti­cle about pre­vent­ing and rec­og­niz­ing heat­stroke in your Frenchie by vet Linda Kalmar.

Now for the extreme con­di­tions. If your area is expe­ri­enc­ing rolling power brown-outs or black-outs, or you just want to be pre­pared if the power goes out, or if your AC isn’t keep­ing the house cool enough or breaks down, below are a few con­tin­gency sug­ges­tions. (This is by no means an exhaus­tive list and is aimed at a Frenchie owner already edu­cated on the basics of keep­ing a dog cool.)

• Keep some ice packs, the kind you use in a cooler, frozen and on hand. This way, you can tuck them into a crate for emer­gency cooling.
• Have some battery-powered fans in stock, along with fresh bat­ter­ies. You can find small, cheap fans at big box stores, or crate fans from pet suppliers.
• Arrange with friends and fam­ily to pro­vide a tem­po­rary place to for your and pets to camp out if the power goes out for an extended period.
• Buy the ever-popular plas­tic kid­die pool and fill with water so your dogs can soak and get some heat relief when they have to make those impor­tant busi­ness trips outside.
• Keep a full tank of gas so you are pre­pared to take your guys on a cool­ing joy ride or just sit in the dri­ve­way and aim an air vent at them. (Dri­ving helps the AC func­tion bet­ter, but accord­ing to Cartalk.com idling and run­ning the AC won’t hurt your car.) Do not leave pets alone, even with the AC run­ning. If the AC mal­func­tions, tem­per­a­tures inside the auto can rise in min­utes and essen­tially bake your pets to death.

One of the most stress­ful con­cerns for Frenchie and pet own­ers is: what if the power goes out and tem­per­a­tures in the house rise to dan­ger­ous lev­els while you are at work or away from the house? Con­sider installing a tem­per­a­ture mon­i­tor. They come in all price points and can send alerts via a phone call, an e-mail, or as a text mes­sage. If you already have an alarm ser­vice, many com­pa­nies offer tem­per­a­ture mon­i­tor­ing and alert­ing, often labeled Crit­i­cal Ser­vices, which as we Frenchie own­ers all know, tem­per­a­ture is quite crit­i­cal for our snub-nosed pals! Search for home tem­per­a­ture mon­i­tor or home tem­per­a­ture sen­sor.

As a French bull­dog owner, you are more aware of the dan­gers and signs of heat injury than friends, fam­ily, and neigh­bors own­ing breeds nor­mally more heat-tolerant. Keep an eye out for those pets and their own­ers dur­ing this extreme heat. They may not real­ize how quickly heat­stroke and heat injuries can happen.

For more ways to stay safe in this heat, visit A&M’s Exten­sion Dis­as­ter Edu­ca­tion Net­work.  Lots of infor­ma­tion avail­able to keep both you and your Frenchie cool dur­ing this bru­tal heat wave.

Stay safe, stay cool, and don’t hog the kid­die pool!

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Join­ing the Sat­ur­day Pet Blog­ger Hop! Visit the blogs below or add your own blog by fol­low­ing the directions.

Happy Sat­ur­day, and wel­come to another install­ment of the Sat­ur­day Pet Blog­ger Hop! You’ve found the right place to con­nect with other pet lovers. Whether you are a sea­soned blog­ger, one who loves read­ing pet blogs, or if you’re just think­ing about start­ing your own blog – there is def­i­nitely some­thing here for you. Acquaint your­self and enjoy – this is your resource, so use it as you see fit! Of course, you have to fol­low the rules, so let’s get to that. Get those links in and have fun.

• Link up your pet blog name and URL using the Linky Tool below. You only need to add your link once to be seen on all the Sat­ur­day Pet Blog­ger Blog Hop Linky Tools for that week. Note that if your blog is not pet related your link will be removed. Also note that only one post per blog is accept­able, and links pro­mot­ing give­aways that are unre­lated to the pet blog­ger hop will be removed. This is a com­mu­nity build­ing exer­cise and not a pro­mo­tional vehi­cle – please treat it as such.
• Grab the “Sat­ur­day Pet Blog­ger Blog Hop” but­ton on the right hand side of this site and include it in your Sat­ur­day Blog hop post so that your read­ers will know what is going on. *Note – post­ing is optional. Feel free to just link and follow.
• Fol­low your co-hosts listed in the first 3 slots of the Linky Tool.
• Fol­low as many other blogs on the linky as you’d like.
• Take a moment to com­ment on the blogs telling them you’re from the blog hop.
• Fol­low back when you get a new fol­lower through the Sat­ur­day Pet Blog­ger Hop.
• Make friends and grow. ♥