For gun dog owners, few moments are more gut-wrenching than those following a snakebite. Encounters with rattlesnakes are fraught with fear and chaos as hunters rush to triage their dog and face the prospect of a life-threatening reaction.

Canine athletes are incredibly efficient metabolic machines that can create tremendous amounts of heat while burning energy. It’s a physiological trait that helps them achieve impressive feats of athleticism, but in hot ambient temperatures it can also become a liability.