The French bulldog came in at 105.2. Not the worst she'd seen tonight.
Fan on. Cool water over the belly and inner legs. Not cold. Cold constricts the vessels and traps heat inside. The owner was maybe twenty-two, standing in the doorway holding the leash like he didn't know what else to hold.
"He was only outside ten minutes," the kid said.
She didn't look up. "It doesn't take long."
The bulldog's tongue was wide and purple-dark, panting shallow and fast. She checked temp again at five minutes. 104.1. She'd stop active cooling at 103.5 to avoid rebound hypothermia, then fluids, then watch.
"He's going to be okay?"
"We're getting his temperature down. That's the first thing."
She left the tech monitoring and went to the next room.
Three dogs in the waiting room at 8:15 on a Tuesday in June. All short-haired. A whippet, a basenji mix, something that looked like a Carolina dog. The advisory board by the front desk listed restricted walk hours: before 7 AM, after 9 PM, March through October. Below it someone had taped a printout. Pavement temperature chart. At ninety degrees air temp the asphalt hits 140. At 140 a dog's pads burn in under a minute.
The paw burn was a pointer mix, maybe two years old. Second-degree on all four feet, skin lifting on the front left. The raw tissue underneath was wet and pink, and when she cleaned it the dog pulled back hard and whined once, high and short, then went quiet.
The woman who brought her in said they'd walked at seven. "We waited until seven," she said, like seven was something she'd been promised.
She applied silver sulfadiazine, wrapped the pads. Prescribed tramadol and said to keep her off hard floors for a week. The woman nodded and didn't ask how she was supposed to walk the dog if the dog couldn't walk.
The golden retriever came in at 8:40, carried by a man and a woman while a girl about ten held the door. The dog was limp, panting in short rapid bursts, gums going from brick red to gray. She could see it from across the room.
"We walked at seven," the man said. "We always walk at seven."
She got the dog on the table. Rectal temp: 107.4. The body under her hands was hot the way an engine block is hot, heat pushing out from deep inside.
She was already doing the math. Walk started at seven. Forty-five minutes to an hour, the man would say. Dog went down in the driveway, so call it quarter to eight. Drove here. It was 8:40 now. That put them close to the edge of the window where cooling and fluids could still reverse the cascade. Maybe past it.
"How long was the walk?"
"Forty-five minutes. Maybe an hour. She seemed fine until." He stopped. "She just went down in the driveway."
Fan on. Cool water over the neck, belly, groin. IV catheter, fluids running. The dog's eyes were open but unfocused. The panting was slowing in a way that wasn't good. Fast panting means the body is still trying. Slow panting at 107 means the body is giving up the effort.
The girl stood by the door. "Is Goldie going to be okay?"
She didn't answer right away. "We're cooling her down right now. That's the most important thing we can do."
Temp at five minutes: 106.8. Coming down. Slow.
She could hear the man through the door, talking to his wife. Seven o'clock. Always seven. Used to be fine. But the asphalt holds heat for hours after the sun drops. Air temp at seven was ninety-one tonight. The pavement would've been over 130.
The dog walked forty-five minutes on that because her people were walking. Dogs don't know to stop. They keep going because you're going.
Temp at ten minutes: 106.1. Fifteen: 105.3. She'd drawn blood for a full panel. Kidneys, liver, coag factors. The results would tell her what the heat had already done while the outside was cooling down.
The girl had come into the room and was sitting on the floor by the table. Not touching the dog. Just sitting there.
The dog's tail moved once. Not a wag. Just a movement, the body remembering something the brain might not be tracking anymore.
She'd stop cooling at 103.5. Then they'd wait for the blood work.
The tech came to the door. "Bulldog's stable at 102.8. And there's a husky in the lobby."
A husky. In Austin. In June.
She checked the golden's temp. 104.9. Still coming down. She adjusted the fan and told the girl she could talk to her dog if she wanted. Sometimes it helped.
The girl leaned close and said something she couldn't hear.
She went to see about the husky.
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The heat dome now: The March 2026 Southwest heat dome that makes this story's 2030 setting feel less like speculation — Phoenix hit 105°F three days running, the earliest triple-digit temperatures in 131 years of record keeping.
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Austin's vanishing safe hours: Austin's nighttime lows have been rising faster than daytime highs, with 2023 setting a record for nights that never dropped below 80°F, a trend that is shrinking the window for safe outdoor activity for people and animals alike.
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Breeds built for heat: The largest veterinary study on canine heat stroke found that golden retrievers face three times the baseline risk and bulldogs fourteen times, raising serious welfare concerns as brachycephalic breeds grow more popular in warming cities.
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Attribution is unambiguous: World Weather Attribution found this month's heat event would have been "virtually impossible" without human-caused warming, with climate change adding up to 7.2°F to the temperatures being felt across the Southwest.