Bulldogs are 14 times more likely to get heatstroke than Labradors. Here are the real numbers.
Not an opinion and not a scare story. These are breed risk multipliers from the anonymised clinical records of 905,543 dogs.
If your dog has a flat face, the summer advice written for average dogs does not apply to you. Flat-faced breeds have airways too short and too crowded to cool efficiently by panting, and the data reflects it: brachycephalic dogs had 4.21 times the odds of heat-related illness compared with normal-muzzled dogs in a UK emergency study. Breed by breed, it gets much worse than that.
The breed risk table, compared with a Labrador Retriever
| Breed | Risk vs Labrador |
|---|---|
| Chow Chow | 17x |
| Bulldog | 14x |
| French Bulldog | 6x |
| Dogue de Bordeaux | 5x |
| Greyhound | 4x |
| Pug | 3x |
| Cavalier King Charles Spaniel | 3x |
| Golden Retriever | 3x |
| Springer Spaniel | 3x |
Five of the nine highest-risk breeds are flat-faced. Higher bodyweight relative to the breed average, and being over two years old, independently raised risk as well.
Source: Royal Veterinary College VetCompass, 905,543 dogs
Why a short nose is a cooling problem
A dog’s primary cooling system is the airway. Air moves across wet tissue, water evaporates, heat leaves. A longer muzzle means more surface area doing that work.
Selective breeding compressed the flat-faced skull without shrinking the soft tissue inside it. The result is a shorter, more crowded airway that is harder to move air through. Controlled research found that when exposed to a hot environment, brachycephalic dogs showed a significantly greater rise in body temperature and a significantly larger increase in respiratory rate than normal-muzzled dogs. They work harder and get less cooling for it.
There is a cruel feedback loop here too. Struggling to breathe is itself exertion, and exertion makes more heat.
Source: Hall et al., Scientific Reports (2020)
The AC-is-enough assumption
Cool air helps the panting side of the equation. It does not touch the other half.
Dogs also shed heat by conduction, straight into whatever they are lying on. In a warm house, the floor, the sofa and the bed have all been absorbing heat all day and are sitting near body temperature. A flat-faced dog whose panting is already inefficient loses a lot when the surface option is gone too.
That is the practical case for a cooling surface for these breeds specifically. It is not a luxury item for them. It is the cooling channel that still works when the one they were born with does not.
What to actually do
Walk at dawn or after dark, and keep it short. Exertional heat illness was the most common presentation in the research. For a flat-faced dog, a normal walk on a warm day is exertion.
Watch for noisy breathing at rest. Snorting and snoring are often treated as breed charm. They are signs of a restricted airway, and a restricted airway is a cooling problem.
Give them a cool surface they can choose. Dogs self-regulate if you give them the option. A pressure-activated gel mat needs no power or freezer, so it can sit in the crate, the car and the spot they already flop in.
Know that overweight raises risk independently. That one is free to fix and it helps year round.
What we make for this
A cool surface your dog can choose for themselves, with no freezer, no water and no power. Sizes from small through XL.
Shop cooling mats and beds
Signs you should not wait on
Frantic panting that will not settle, gums that look bright red or very pale, thick ropey drool, stumbling, vomiting, confusion, collapse. Flat-faced dogs can go from struggling to critical quickly.
Start cooling with cool (not ice-cold) water and get to a vet. A cooling mat is prevention, not treatment, and nothing here replaces veterinary care.
Common questions
My Frenchie snores and snorts. Is that normal?
It is common in the breed, but common is not the same as harmless. Noisy breathing at rest indicates a restricted airway, which is also the system your dog relies on to cool. It is worth raising with your vet, and it means you should be more conservative about heat than average advice suggests.
Does the mat need refrigerating?
No. It is pressure activated. Your dog lies on it, the gel absorbs and disperses body heat, and it recharges on its own after roughly 15 to 20 minutes without weight on it. No power, no water, no freezer.
Can I use it in the car and the crate?
Yes, and for flat-faced breeds those are two of the most useful places. Because it needs no power it works in a crate, on a back seat, or in a carrier.
Where do these numbers come from?
The Royal Veterinary College VetCompass programme, which analysed anonymised clinical records from 905,543 UK dogs, published in Scientific Reports. Both are linked on this page. We did not generate these figures.