If your dog is getting hot, standing in cold water will cool them down. Therefor their paws bleed easily when injured-and again, it means that the paw is excellent for regulating the overall body temperature of the dog. ![]() The footpad on the dog has many blood vessels. When you exercise hard, your heart is pumping harder getting oxygen out to your muscles… this makes you feel hot. The temperature of all mammals is regulated and determined by the amount of blood flow. This allows more or less blood to flow, depending on the need. ![]() In addition, blood vessels in the dog paws can open and close with changes in temperature. Warm blood reaches the pad’s surface to keep frostbite away, but without the animal loosing a lot of heat. The arrangement helps the dog hold on to body heat, which otherwise be easily lost through the hairless paws. This system is called vascular counter-current heat exchanger. Humans tend to first get cold hands and feet-if our body core temperature is cooling, the brain closes off blood flow to our extremities: the feet and hands, s do not have a similar system to dogs. This means the blood that then continues on its return towards the core of the body and heart is ‘warmed up.’ This is significant because the brain first and foremost is set to ensure that the core of the body is warm, to ensure the function of the organs. So, the arteries carry warm blood from the heart to paw on the dog where it then heats up the cooler blood returning through the veins. Arteries carry blood from the heart to all parts of the body, and veins carry blood toward the heart. Within the footpad on the dog’s paws are veins that are very close to arteries. ![]() Seals, whales and penguins have the same ‘system’ in their flippers, fins and feet-and like the dog, the Arctic fox and the wolf have it in their paws too. It is an adaptation seen in many Arctic and Antarctic animals. The dogs have an internal circulation system that prevents their paws from freezing. How is it that they don’t need the booties to stay warm as they move across snow and ice, and in temperatures even 40-50 degrees below zero?
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