Ask A Scientist©

Veterinary Topics Archive

Panting Dog and CO2


name         Patrick H.
status       educator
age          30s

Question -   When a dog pants, How does it maintains adequate gas
exchange? If it just ventilates the dead space how is co2 cleared?
-------------------------------
This is somewhat beyond my area of expertise, as I am NOT a pulmonary
physiologist. However, when dogs pant I do not believe they ventilate the
reserve space, but simply increase the RATE of exchange, thereby cooling
down their body. They would need to take deeper breaths to ventilate the
dead space and they do not do this, as far as I know.

Phillip Raclyn, D.V.M.
=========================================================

Back to General Science Topics	Ask A Scientist Index
NEWTON Homepage	Ask A Question

NEWTON is an electronic community for Science, Math, and Computer Science K-12 Educators.
Argonne National Laboratory, Division of Educational Programs, Harold Myron, Ph.D., Division Director.