🌡️Heatstroke
Parked cars first - even in the shade, even 'just ten minutes'. Then midday walks, ball-chasing in the sun, and flat-faced breeds doing anything strenuous in warm air.
Signs: Frantic panting, thick drool, brick-red gums, wobbling, vomiting, collapse. Flat-faced dogs, overweight pets and thick coats tip over fastest.
🚑 What to do: Move to shade, pour cool (not iced) water over the body, keep air moving, and drive to the vet immediately - cool on the way, do not cool first and then decide.
🛡 Prevention: Walk at dawn and dusk, test your plans against the day's heat, and treat the parked car as simply off-limits with a pet inside - cracked windows do not change the physics.
🔥Hot pavement
Asphalt in full sun holds far more heat than the air - a 25 °C day can mean pavement hot enough to burn pads.
Signs: Limping or refusing to walk, licking at feet, pads that look red, blistered or darker than usual after a walk.
🚑 What to do: Rinse paws cool and call your vet if pads look burned - burned pads are painful, infection-prone and worth professional care.
🛡 Prevention: The back-of-hand test: if you cannot hold your hand on the pavement for five seconds, it is too hot for paws. Walk on grass, or walk later.
🦠Blue-green algae
Still, warm water - ponds, lakes and slow rivers in high summer, often with a green scum, paint-like streaks or musty smell. Toxic blooms can kill a dog within hours of a swim.
Signs: Vomiting, drooling, weakness, wobbling or seizures soon after swimming in or drinking from suspect water.
🚑 What to do: Rinse the coat if you safely can and go to a vet immediately - this is one of summer's true emergencies.
🛡 Prevention: Take local bloom warnings literally, and keep dogs out of any water with surface scum. If in doubt, it is a no-swim day.
🍖The barbecue
Corn cobs and kebab skewers are the classic surgical emergencies; cooked bones splinter; fatty trimmings and greasy scraps trigger pancreatitis; and an unattended plate is an invitation.
Signs: For blockages: repeated vomiting, hunching, straining, no appetite over the following day or two. For pancreatitis: vomiting, a painful belly, lethargy a day or so after the feast.
🚑 What to do: If a corn cob, skewer or bone might have gone down, call the clinic now - cobs in particular do not pass and do not show up well on the day. For post-barbecue vomiting or a painful belly, see a vet rather than wait it out.
🛡 Prevention: One guest on dog duty, bins with lids, and a house rule that nobody feeds the pets from the grill - however good the eyes are.
🌾Grass seeds (awns)
Dry meadow grass from June onward. The arrow-shaped seeds hook into fur and then travel - between toes, into ears, up noses, under eyelids.
Signs: Sudden violent head-shaking after a walk, explosive sneezing fits, licking one paw obsessively, a swelling between the toes, a suddenly closed weepy eye.
🚑 What to do: See your vet - awns migrate one way and rarely come out on their own. The sooner one is found, the shorter its journey has been.
🛡 Prevention: Check paws, armpits and ears after every dry-grass walk, and keep the fur between toes and around ears trimmed on feathery breeds.
🐍Snake bites
Heaths, dunes, sunny banks and rock piles in warm months, depending on your region's venomous species - in much of Europe, the adder.
Signs: A sudden yelp, then rapid soft swelling (often a leg or the muzzle), pain, lethargy; sometimes two small punctures you never find under the fur.
🚑 What to do: Carry your dog to the car if you can rather than letting it walk, and go straight to a vet. No tourniquets, no cutting, no sucking - the old advice does harm.
🛡 Prevention: Keep dogs on the path and on a lead in known adder country during warm months, especially in morning sun when snakes bask.
🪟Open windows and balconies
Summer ventilation season is high-rise season for cats. Screens fail, tilted windows trap, and railings are narrower than a cat's confidence.
Signs: This one is prevention-only: falls injure jaws, chests and legs even from low floors, and a cat caught in a tilted window can be badly hurt struggling.
🚑 What to do: After any fall - even one that looked survived - have the cat checked; internal injuries are common and quiet.
🛡 Prevention: Proper fitted screens or window guards, never leave a tilt-window open unattended in a cat flat, and net the balcony or keep it closed.
🧴Sunburn
White ear tips, pink noses, thin bellies and freshly clipped coats - the same skin that burns on people, with fewer defences.
Signs: Red, flaky, later crusting ear tips and noses; repeated burns on white cats' ears are a known route to skin cancer.
🚑 What to do: If skin is already crusting, ulcerated or not healing, see your vet rather than treating it yourself.
🛡 Prevention: Shade during peak hours and, for pets that need it, a pet-appropriate sunscreen chosen with your vet - many human products (zinc oxide especially) are not safe to lick.
This checklist is general awareness information drawn from widely accepted veterinary and poison-control guidance. It is not a diagnosis, a treatment plan or a substitute for professional care, and risks vary with your individual pet, dose and region. In any suspected poisoning or emergency, your first move is to contact a vet or an animal poison line - not to search further.