Are cats affected by heat? What do you think? Being animals whose origin is found in deserts, we might think that they are very used to high temperatures, and that they can cope with them even much better than humans, but is that true?
The reality is that it depends on the cat itself and the environmental conditions in which it was raised from a puppy because, like us, they adapt to the environment in which they live, which may or may not be the same as the one they originally had.
Cats are warm-blooded animals. This means that your brain - more specifically, the hypothalamus - has to take care of maintaining a constant temperature between the 38 and 39ºC. If outside it is smaller and they do not have a coat to protect them, or it is not dense enough, they will be cold; on the contrary, if they are older, they will look for those cool corners to prevent their body temperature from rising.
How to know if my cat is hot?
That is a question whose answer is the following: you'll know she's having heat stress when looking for the coolest corners of the home. For example, during the summer you will see him lie on the ground, or approach the fan or air conditioning to reduce body heat.
How do I know if my cat has heatstroke?
If the cat is in an insufficiently ventilated corner, unable to protect itself from high temperatures, such as in a closed car for example, it may end up having heatstroke, which can cost it its life. The symptoms of this serious problem are:
- Difficulty breathing and / or breathing very quickly.
- Muscle tremors
- Vomiting
- Change in color of the mucous membranes of the gums (they usually turn blue).
- Increase in heart rate.
- The skin turns bluish from the lack of oxygen in the blood.
What to do?
If your cat suffers from heat stroke, what you have to do is take it to a cool place, and apply cold to the head, neck, groin and armpits, or put it under a jet of water (that is not very cold or that it falls with a lot of power) so that its temperature stabilizes.
When you are better, or if on the contrary you do not notice improvement, take him to the vet urgently covered (never wrapped) in a damp towel -cool-.
As you can see, heat can affect cats a lot. Make sure your friend always has clean, fresh water available, and that he can protect himself from the sun.
My kitten stays on the terrace with high temperatures and does not want to go down, and up there it is very hot, she lies in the shade of a roof, but still the heat is unbearable.
I lower her because I suffer from seeing her there, but I don't know if I'm doing well, because if she felt bad upstairs, she would go down and be with me and with the air conditioning, but it seems to me that the ventilation just escapes.
But when I go down, she sleeps with me and stays, so not if she's capricious and doesn't come down when I call her on a whim.
To you. What do you think I have to do?
Thank you very much already
Hello Maria Rosa.
If she likes to be there in the sun, leave her 🙂 As long as she has a shady spot, no problem.
Of course, it is highly recommended to avoid being there during the central hours of the day, especially if you have white hair.
Greetings.