When Tao Went Quiet in the Heat: Our Scare and What We Changed

Tao is a serious dog. From sunrise he works the garden wall, hunting lizards with the focus of a surgeon, and by noon he is flat on the cool tiles with his belly to the ceiling. That is normal. What is not normal is a dog who refuses water and lies in the shade of the mango tree with his tongue hanging out, eyes half closed, at three in the afternoon in April, when Khon Kaen is pushing forty degrees.

I had come home early, and I found him like that. His gums looked pale and his breathing was fast and heavy. My first instinct was to panic. My second, thank goodness, was to remember what the vet had told us last year: cool him gently, do not shock him, and go in. I carried him inside to the tile floor, wet his belly and paws with room-temperature water, put a fan on him and called my neighbour, who drove us to the clinic with the air-con at full blast. I did not use ice or freezing water, because our vet had warned us that can do more harm than good.

At the clinic they took his temperature and gave him fluids, and he spent three hours on a drip with a cooling fan. The vet said it was heat stress, caught early, and that Ridgebacks with their short coats are tough but not machines. She told us to watch for heavy panting, drooling and wobbling, and that anything like that means calling a clinic right away. By evening Tao was lifting his head and giving the nurse the suspicious look he gives every new person. I took that as a very good sign.

He came home, drank a full bowl, and leaned his whole weight on my legs in the kitchen. He does that only with people he considers family. I have not forgotten it.

So here is what we changed. Walks happen at six in the morning or after dusk, and never on the road surface when it is hot, because I test it with my own hand. There are two water bowls in the shade, one inside and one outside. The lizard patrol is now allowed only before nine, and I have put a cooling mat under the mango tree. In the hottest weeks I check on him by video call from the office.

The lizards are, I must admit, very relieved to have a break in the afternoons. Tao is not, but he has accepted it, in his serious way.