How Do You Take The Temperature Of A Dog Or Cat?

Temperature taking is a necessity if your pet is sick. At this time, proper technique should be adopted to get the accurate temperatures of both dogs and cats. Merely feeling the body parts with hand will not give an indication of the correct temperature.

There are mainly 2 ways for taking the temperature accurately. It can be done by means of a rectal thermometer or an ear thermometer.

Rectal Temperature - shake the mercury thermometer well to get the mercury below 94'F. Then lubricate it using KY or petroleum jelly. Lift your pet's tail and insert it about an inch deep inside the rectum at the base of the tail. Hold it for 2 minutes or till the beep starts, for a digital thermometer. Now take the reading. You may want to take the help of another person to hold the pet still before you inset the thermometer in the rectum.

Ear Temperature: This could also give you temperatures that are quite accurate. One must have the right kind of thermometer for doing this and the arm of the thermometer should be inserted properly inside the ear canal for accurate readings. The ear thermometer measures infrared heat waves originating from the ear drum area giving a fair idea of the overall body temperature as it measures the temperature in the areas near to the brain.