What Do I Do If My Dog Has Heatstroke? Cool First, Drive Second

If the dog is down right now

Get them somewhere cool, get water on them, and keep it going. Call the vet while you are doing it, not before you start. The Royal Veterinary College's phrase for this is cool first, transport second.

Survival tracks severity closely: 97% of dogs treated for mild heat illness lived. For severe heatstroke it was 43%. Cooling in the first minutes is the thing that decides which of those you are in.

Almost every pet website still tells you to use tepid or lukewarm water and to avoid cold water in case it causes shock. That advice is out of date. The evidence now points the other way, and following the old version costs time that the dog does not have.

What to do

Get them out of the heatShade, indoors, air conditioning, anywhere cooler. Stop the exercise instantly — not after the last hundred yards.
Pour water over them, and keep pouringThe RVC's guidance is to use whatever water you have, provided it is cooler than the dog. A hose, a paddling pool, a lake, bottled water, a bucket. Cold is better than tepid.
For a young, healthy dog: cold water immersionWhole-body immersion in cold water is the recommended method, and it is the fastest. This is the part that reverses what you have read elsewhere.
For an old dog, or one with heart or airway disease: pour and fanCooler water poured over them plus moving air — a fan, an open car window on the move, air conditioning. Evaporative cooling, rather than immersion.
Keep going while you travelWet dog, windows open, air conditioning on. Cooling does not stop because you got in the car.
Offer small drinks if they are alert enough to take themDo not force water into a dog that is not fully with you.

What not to do

Do not use wet towels laid over themBetter than nothing, and that is the strongest thing that can be said for it. A towel warms to the dog's temperature and then insulates. The RVC is explicit that it is not nearly as effective as immersion or evaporative cooling.
Do not use tepid or lukewarm water because you read it was saferThe concern about cold water causing shock has not held up. Immersion in cold water cools significantly faster, and speed is what the outcome depends on.
Do not drive first and cool laterThis is the commonest mistake and it is the expensive one. Twenty minutes in a car with the temperature still climbing is twenty minutes of organ damage.
Do not cover them with ice or ice packs aloneIn the trial work, ice packs cooled more slowly than simply getting the head and body wet.
Do not wait to see if they settleA dog that has stopped panting and gone quiet is not recovering. That is often the point at which it is getting worse.

One trick worth knowing before you need it

A 2024 study in the Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association tested cooling methods on dogs after exercise and found that a voluntary head dunk — the dog choosing to put its own head into a bucket of cool water — cooled faster in the first five minutes than ice packs or towels on the neck or armpits, and was the only method that stopped the usual post-exercise temperature rise before it started.

Two conditions attached to that, and they matter. The dog must be mentally normal and able to pause its panting, and it must never be forced. A dog that is already in heatstroke, confused or collapsed is not a candidate — that dog needs water poured over it and a vet.

It is worth teaching on a normal warm day, so that it exists as an option on the day it counts.

The signs, in the order they usually arrive

Early	Heavy panting that does not settle at rest, seeking shade, slowing down, drooling more than usual
Getting worse	Frantic open-mouthed panting, very red gums and tongue, thick ropey saliva, vomiting or diarrhea
Emergency	Wobbling, stumbling, refusing to stand, confusion, collapse, seizures, gums going pale, gray or blue, or panting that stops

A normal dog temperature is roughly 101 to 102.5°F. Heatstroke is generally described from about 104°F upward. If you own a rectal thermometer and know how to use it, the number is useful to give the vet — but taking it must not delay getting water on the dog.

Where it actually comes from

Three quarters of the canine heatstroke reaching UK primary care practices was caused by exercise, not by cars and not by lying in a garden. The average case happened at a wet bulb globe temperature around 16.5°C, roughly 62°F.

That is the number to keep hold of. This is not a disease of freak heatwaves. It is a disease of an ordinary warm day and a dog that was asked to run.

Work out whether today's walk is a good idea · How hot the car gets

Last reviewed October 2026. Written and maintained by Petdeals.io. General care information, not veterinary advice — for a sick animal, call a vet.

If the heart has stopped

This only applies to an animal that is unresponsive and not breathing. An animal that is breathing does not need this, and chest compressions on one that does not need them can injure it.

One person drives to the nearest open vet. The other works on the animal on the way. Call the practice while you are moving so they are ready when you arrive.

100 to 120chest compressions a minuteEvery 6 secondsone breath2 minutesbefore stopping to check

Those are the numbers trained rescuers work to. Doing this well takes a course, and reading three numbers is not the same as being taught it. The RECOVER Initiative runs a paid course for owners if you want to learn it properly before you ever need it.

Numbers from the 2024 CPR Algorithm for Dogs and Cats, published by the RECOVER Initiative, which is supported by the American College of Veterinary Emergency and Critical Care. Find a board certified emergency vet near you.