Alina Hauptman, public relations strategist at the Best Friends Animal Society, offers some tips on how to keep your cats cool through the summer heat. 



<div class="block">Alina Hauptman, public relations strategist at the Best Friends Animal Society, offers some tips on how to keep your cats cool through the summer heat. </div>

Wake Up With Cheddar

Cheddar Paws: How to Keep Your Cats Cool This Summer

Welcome to Cheddar News. I'm do from Cheddar studios in New York City. Yes. Me, everyone and I make up a and it's getting warmer outside and inside our homes. Uh, and this morning on Cheddar pause, we're joined by our friend Alena Hopman from Best Friends Animal Society here to give us some advice on how to keep cats cool and safe from all that excessive heat over the summer. But first we have to introduce our viewers to those cutie right here. Yes. Say hello to Luna. Luna. Luna is 2.5 months old. She's available at Best Friends Animal Society in New York City. She's so playful. All right, let's talk about the, uh, the summer heat. We know it gets hot, it gets humid. What's a comfortable temperature for cats during the summer? Well, something that's really interesting. Tell us something that's really interesting is that cats have a body temperature of 101 degrees. So they are comfortable in 85 to 90 degrees. They do. Ok. All right. Ok. So, aside from checking your thermostat and making sure your home is cool enough. What else can cat owners do to sort of offer relief from the heat for a lot of these animals. Sure. You wanna put multiple water dishes out around your apartment, you can put ice cubes in it. Luna, come down, you can freeze a water bottle. Ok. And let them play with it. Pull your shades down, especially, you know, during the hottest parts of the, the day. So can a cat's fur trap heat? And what advice do you have on how to groom cats? Especially in the summer? So that's a great question. And cats fur does catch the heat. So you wanna groom and brush your cats daily? What if your cat doesn't let you, does your cat not let you? Oh, this is a good question. Do you treat while you're brushing them? Oh, no, but you don't give them treats while you drink every day, all day. Are there signs out there for owners out there that the cat is getting too hot? Yeah, absolutely. So panting, excessive panting, drooling nausea, vomiting when the gums are really pale or very red. Um And then obviously losing consciousness, all signs degrees. What else do we need to know? Like you mentioned it is kitten season. You guys are getting a lot of kittens. What should we know? So right now from May and through November, all of the uns spayed cats are having their litter. So shelters, I know I've talked about this before, but shelters are overcrowded and at capacity kittens are an at risk population. So the right thing to do is get out and adopt, so adopt a kitten, a cat, a puppy, a dog, whatever you want. But summer is the perfect time to get out there. And also black ones in particular because those are often always overlooked and dogs and cats, they are, they are overlooked. So, if you're looking for an adorable kitten, like luna, you have to, I mean, it's hard and I bet she'll get adopted pretty quickly, but there are so many of every color, whatever you're looking for, they're all up for adoption. You can check Best friends dot org or to find one of our kittens or any kittens from a local shelter. Alena Hoffman. Always a pleasure to have you and all the friends we get to meet every week with you all the time. From the Best friends. Animal Society guys don't go anywhere. Starbucks making a big change in their drinks and it might make customers blood run cold. What does that mean? We'll explain another need to know headlines coming up next Luna. You did so good.