5 Tips: How Your Cat Copes With Severe Heat

Many cats enjoy feeling the warmth of the sun on their fur on the balcony or roof of the car. However, cats reach their limits on real summer days and with severe heat. Sunburn or heatstroke can be the consequences. The following five tips indicate how you as a cat owner can protect your pet on hot summer days.

Summer with a cat: The right suncream

What’s news to many of us is that even cats can get sunburn with severe heat in summer! It makes sense upon first glance for hairless cats like a Sphynx to suffer from this. But how does this affect cats with fur too? The fur on the bridge of the nose, ears and abdomen is less thick than on the rest of the body. Excessive sun exposure on these parts of the body can lead to the skin becoming inflamed. Cats with light fur or shorthair cats are at particularly high risk of sunburn.

The first signs of sunburn are reddening of the skin, increased sensitivity to pain and severe itching. Nausea and painful skin wounds with blistering can emerge in severe cases.

Protect your cat from sunburn by applying suncream with a high SPF to the body parts at risk. When choosing a suitable suncream, you should make sure it contains no irritants like perfumes or allergens.

Plenty of fresh drinking water

Cats need more fresh drinking water on hot summer days. There is the risk of dehydration if your cat doesn’t drink enough. You can try the following tricks to encourage your cat to drink in the heat:

• Distribute several water bowls or drinking fountains throughout your home.
• Change the water daily.
• Water containers in the garden encourage many outdoor cats to drink outside.
• All cats enjoy unsalted chicken or beef broth.
• Supplement dry food with wet food with a high moisture content.

Offer your cat a shady spot in the heat

During the summer months, dark ground surfaces and tarmac walkways get extremely hot to the extent that our cats almost cannot walk on them. You can put down light or damp covers, for instance, to keep the ground pleasantly cool. Cooling mats or a shady spot under a parasol are also suitable options for cooling down.

If you have an indoor cat with no outdoor access, you can also open the windows at night or in the early morning to thoroughly ventilate your home. During the day, it’s advisable to black out the windows with roller blinds or curtains. This keeps the room temperature pleasant for you and your cat even on hot summer days.

Cooling down in a paddling pool

Cats and water don’t always have the best relationship, although this can change quickly during summer heatwaves. Hence, offer your cat several options to cool down in severe heat:

For instance, outdoor cats like a refreshing paddling pool or lawn sprinkler in the garden. In contrast, you can offer a purely indoor cat a cool bath or damp flannel in severe heat.

Ice cubes provide a tasty cooling option too. Hide a treat in the middle of the ice cube to make it more interesting for your cat.

Protect your cat from parasites in summer

Ticks and mites love summer and hot temperatures, so a lot can be found outside in the grass and trees at this time. These parasites can transmit dangerous infectious diseases to your cat. Hence, it’s very important to protect outdoor cats with effective protection from parasites as early as spring.

You can choose from different dosage forms depending on their efficacy and duration:

• Collars cause less ticks to bite. Efficacy generally lasts for several months.
• Spot-ons are trickled on the cat’s neck so that the remedy spreads over your cat’s coat.
• Tablets are administered orally and cause parasites to die after biting.

You can ask your vet at any time for information on the ingredients, dosage and possible side effects.