Help! Overheated pig

[Evangeline]

But everyone else seems to agree the risk of shock is just too high to do something like that to pigs. Have you successfully treated an overheated pig with icy water or are you extrapolating from cats and dogs?

[Josephine]

We're not supposed to use ice in dogs and cats, either. At least that's the current thought among Emergency and Critical Care specialists. There are several schools of thought. The initial prognosis over animals with certain temps (like over 107F) is so poor to start out with. Inducing more shock is pretty much inconsequential. Like I stated before, you want to lower the temp in a timely manner, but not in 5 minutes. More like over 20-60 minutes. We don't worry much about temps under 104F. There are some physiological things that happen at that temp which do try to shield the body a bit. The body has some mechanisms for dealing with the insult.

Now that I'm working in an emergency facility, things are done differently than in most "day-only" practices. Most of the emergency docs I work with have been out of school 5-10 years, which also makes a difference in treatment protocols.