By Ally from @kaiandriley - Nov 2, 2019
The Unknown Side of Spending Time by the Ocean with your Dogs
We all love to head to the dog beach with our four legged pets. But a lot of us don’t know how dangerous salt water can be if our dogs drink too much of it - which is called salt water poisoning.
Signs/Symptoms to look for
- Weakness
- Diarrhea
- Muscle tremors
- Seizures
- Confused/Non-Responsive
- Lethargic
When a dog ingests salt water, the excess salt draws water from the blood into the intestines, leading to diarrhea, vomiting, and dehydration. Salt water also disrupts the fluid balance in your dog. Dogs with toxic levels of sodium in their systems have a mortality rate higher than 50 percent, regardless of treatment.
When too much salt builds up in a dog’s body, her cells release their water content to try and balance out the sodium disparity. This, in turn, causes a litany of serious health effects. It can cause seizures, a loss of brain cells, injury to the kidneys, and severe dehydration. If a dog with saltwater poisoning isn’t treated medically, the condition can easily lead to death.
How to prevent it
Here are some safety precautions to help prevent your pup from ingesting salt water.
Safety precautions:
- Make sure you pup has fresh water breaks. Guide them to the water, so they know where it is.
- Make your pup a “cool down” zone. A pop up tent or a towel in the shade.
- Use flat toys rather than balls for water play. Constantly throwing a ball causes your pup to bob into the water to retrieve the ball and this causes them to intake the salt water.
- Play in the sand areas with them rather than throwing the toys into the water.
- Make sure they take rest breaks away from the water from 15 minutes is ideal for play time, then have them calm down for a while from the water.
If you think your dog has salt water poisoning head to the vet immediately.
