Climate Action
Hot Dogs and Cool Cats: How Climate Change Hurts Our Pets
January 7, 2026
Climate change isn’t a distant or abstract issue — it’s already reshaping the world around us. As rising temperatures and extreme weather intensify, these changes are affecting people, ecosystems, and wildlife. They’re also impacting the animal companions who share our homes and depend on us for care and protection. What does this mean for our pets?
Pollution is already a growing concern for pet owners, from plastics that our pets can ingest through their food, water, and toys to microscopic plastic fibers found in the air they breathe. While some exposures can be reduced at home, by limiting the plastic your pets come into contact with, climate change adds another layer of risk that’s often harder to see.
Rising temperatures, worsening air quality, and more extreme weather can all affect your pet’s health and comfort. Here’s how these changes may impact your pet, what signs to watch for, and how you and your animal companion can adapt together.
1. Mad Dogs, Climate Change, and the Rising Heat
Heat can be a big stressor for a lot of our furry, scaled, and feathered friends. For cats and dogs, rising temperatures can cause heatstroke, and in extreme cases, death. Walking your dog less during hot days, will help to avoid heatstroke. Experts say that, if you see your dog or cat panting a lot, drooling, or moving erratically during a hot day, this could be a warning sign. If you notice these symptoms, move your pet to a cool, shaded area immediately, offer fresh water, and if these symptoms continue contact a veterinarian as soon as possible.
Certain dog breeds are more heavily impacted than others. Brachycephalic dog breeds, which include bulldogs, pugs, and Boston terriers, have flat faces or short muzzles, which makes breathing more difficult for them. Because dogs regulate their temperatures by panting, as opposed to sweating, the diminished ability of brachycephalic dogs to breathe, means that they cannot cool themselves down in high temperatures easily.
Additionally, fish and birds will suffer. Unlike humans and most mammals, which generally have a stable internal body temperature, a fish’s body temperature will fluctuate depending on its environment. In warmer temperatures, it will generally need more oxygen to survive, and may stop eating, both of which are high risks to its health. Birds may also experience harmful behavioral changes, such as feather picking. Limit outdoor activity in hot weather, provide shade and water, and never leave these dogs, or any dogs, in parked cars on hot days.
According to the ASPCA, on a 70°F day, the inside of a parked car can reach about 90°F in minutes. On an 85°F day, a car can top 100°F in as little as 10 minutes, and approach 120°F within 30 minutes. These rapid temperature increases create critical heatstroke risk for pets left inside. Even cracking a window or parking in the shade doesn’t stop temperatures from rising dangerously – so never leave your pet in a parked car unattended in hot weather.
2. More Leggy Pests = More Aggravation
Rising global temperatures also allow pests like fleas, mosquitos, and ticks to expand their territories and live longer through the year. These can cause a wide range of problems for pets that go outside, roll around in the grass too much, and end up with them snagged in their coats. Fleas may cause pets to itch themselves excessively, leading to skin problems, including dermatitis, while ticks can transmit illnesses, such as Lyme Disease.
The one bit of good news is that, because pets carrying these pests may itch more and behave erratically, the itching serves as a warning sign. Fever, decreased appetite, increased thirst, and vomiting are also signs that can alert an owner to Lyme disease. Additionally, many tick-borne diseases are caused by bacteria, meaning that they can be cured by antibiotics, and as long as treatment is early, an infected pet will usually recover completely.
3. Natural Disasters Are Disastrous For Pets Too
Climate change is intensifying natural disasters like flooding, storms and wildfires, around the world. While communities are increasingly planning for future evacuations and building more resilient infrastructure, pets are often overlooked in these preparations.
On top of that, rescue shelters may not allow pets inside their facilities because crowding people and pets together after natural disasters can cause overcrowding, increasing the risk of zoonotic disease transmission. Pets may also take up more resources than the shelter, already inundated with people, can give.
Natural disasters can sadly lead to pet abandonment. For example, an older study in America found that wildfires increase the number of cats entering shelters and, when injured, raise euthanasia rates.
Losing a pet during such events can deeply affect owners,increasing the risk of distress, depression, and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Pets often provide comfort and support, so losing them removes an important source of emotional stability in difficult times.
However, even when institutions may not have plans to adequately help pets, owners, and communities often try. In the 2019-2020 “Black Summer” Australian fires, many people — despite the danger they faced — made valiant strides to protect pets and other animals, as well as themselves. Stories like these show that the bond between people and pets runs deep, and why it’s so critical that, after a disaster, there are safe havens for humans and creatures alike.
4. Shifting Seasons
Despite the cosy life indoors that many pets enjoy they are biologically hard wired to changes in the seasons outside. For example, pet reptiles, just like wild ones, will engage in brumation (a dormant state, where they rarely waken, and may not move, drink, or eat for several weeks) during the winter. For wild reptiles, rising global temperatures are disrupting brumation cycles, causing them to awaken too early, before food is widely available in their habitats. Although food isn’t a problem for pet reptiles, they still may face some harms — for example, turtles prevented from bromating are more prone to illnesses, and have shorter lifespans.
Seasonal changes are also causing birds to molt (shed their feathers) earlier. While molting is an unavoidable process, climate change is causing abnormal molting cycles. While this is primarily a problem for wild birds, it does mean that if your pet bird spends most of its time in natural light, climate change may still disrupt its molting cycle, making it less predictable or healthy.
5. Air Quality
In a study of veterinary visits in the United Kingdom from 2017 to 2022, scientists found that reducing air pollution could save the country over £15 million per year in pet care costs. Air pollution harms pets’ lungs, hearts, skin, and eyes, causing respiratory problems, allergies, and even increasing cancer risk.
Dogs and cats can develop the same types of lung conditions that people can, including asthma and pneumonia. Some warning signs include rapid breathing or panting, blue gums, stress, and, for cats, open-mouth breathing. Prolonged exposure to air pollutants can cause severe problems in functioning and lower quality of life. They also might not just be limited to breathing– new research suggests that wildfire smoke can also cause eye infections and cellular stress in dogs, and disrupt blood flow in cats.
Birds and other sensitive species are particularly vulnerable. Owners can mitigate this by keeping pets inside on days with bad air quality and investing in air filtration systems. For those with birds, though they don’t go outside, it’s still important to remember that their lungs are particularly vulnerable to toxic gases.
Climate change worsens this problem by making the air hotter and more stagnant, creating smog, and by fueling smoke-spreading wildfires. Preventing further warming is the only way to reduce these risks and spare our animal companions the stress — and cost — of extra vet visits.
And a final way to help your pets? Please support our efforts to make sure that climate change doesn’t get worse. EARTHDAY.ORG’s initiative, OUR POWER, OUR PLANET, is seeking to triple renewable energy generation around the world by 2060 to limit our reliance on climate change causing fossil fuels. Every step, or flap, or hop, or slither forward on this goal will help make the Earth a better home for our favorite, furry pals.
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