Safe-seeming garage actually full of peril for domestic pets
Several years ago, a client came to me with a new rabbit that needed neutering. She said that both she and her son were anxious about the surgery because his previous rabbit had just died of respiratory disease, and she wasn't sure he would be able to take it if he lost another rabbit so soon.
But the surgery went well, and the rabbit went home uneventfully.
A few days later, the rabbit died - not from the surgery, but from heat stroke. His hutch was in their garage, and by the time they got him to me, his body temperature measured higher than 110 degrees.
The lesson for pet owners: The garage might seem like a safe place to shelter animals because it keeps them out of the sun in the summer, out of the wind and cold in the winter, and out of the reach of predators.
But in reality, the garage is a place of great danger for pets.
In the cold, the garage blocks the wind and snow, but without something smaller like a dog house inside the garage, the space is too large for an animal to use its own body heat to warm up the air in the immediate environment. Frostbite can and does affect the ears and feet of animals kept in the garage.
In the summer, the garage can heat up nearly as much as the inside of a car in the parking lot, making heat stroke a very real possibility for an animal locked inside on hot days.
Rabbits, ferrets and chinchillas are particularly sensitive to the heat and will not do well in the summer in hutches in the garage unless there is a lot of special ventilation.
When it comes to dogs, realize that it's impossible to overestimate the stupid things a bored dog will eat when given the opportunity. I have treated dogs that have eaten bags of fertilizer, ice melt, and rat poison traps that were meticulously placed so that there was absolutely no way the dog could ever get to them. Of course the garage is a veritable grocery store for such delicacies in the dog world.
Cats are not free from the hazards of the garage, either. On a cold night, the warm engine compartment of a car that has just gotten home can be irresistible to the cat. Once the cat gets snugly situated against the engine block, there can be some real excitement when the driver suddenly realizes that she's out of milk and needs to make a quick drive the grocery store.
Cats also often perch or sleep in odd places like the tops of a truck's tires, or the top of the garage door. When the vehicle suddenly comes to life and backs up, some cats get run over after they are dumped off the back of the tire.
Cats resting on the tops of garage doors are often injured or killed when the door is opened or closed by someone who has no way of knowing the cat was even up there.
The garage still makes a great home for cars and rakes, but our four-legged companions would be better off either inside or outside with appropriate shelter.
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Anne Pierce is a Colorado Springs veterinarian and co-owner of High Plains Veterinary Hospital, a Colorado Springs small-animal clinic. Reach her at petdocs@highplainsvet.com.
