Can Dogs Get Sick From Rain or Being Wet and Cold?

A cough or fever needs assessment, not a weather diagnosis

Rain is not an infectious organism. The Merck Veterinary Manual describes kennel cough as an illness caused by viruses and bacteria, with spread among dogs housed close together. It also lists noninfectious causes of airway inflammation. A cough after a walk therefore does not establish either the rain or an infection as the cause.

Merck notes that environmental stress can affect susceptibility to respiratory disease, and that fever or other additional signs can indicate a more serious problem. Contact your veterinarian about a persistent cough, low energy, poor appetite or suspected fever; trouble breathing requires urgent care. Feeling warm to your hand is not a diagnosis. Tell the vet when the signs started and what the dog was exposed to.

Can being wet make a dog cold?

Cold exposure is a separate concern from an infectious cough. The dog’s condition and the weather matter; do not treat the absence of coughing or shivering as proof that a soaked dog is comfortable.

The real risk: cold on a wet coat

Cold, wet conditions deserve more caution than a mild shower. Cornell’s winter safety guidance recommends warm, dry shelter and notes that smaller, older and thin-coated dogs may benefit from a jacket or sweater. The ASPCA recommends towel drying pets when they come indoors.

Ask your veterinarian about weather limits for a puppy, senior or dog with a health condition. A raincoat can reduce wetting; it is not treatment, disease prevention or permission to stay out despite discomfort.

There is no universal rain-temperature cutoff established by these sources. Ask your veterinarian about your own dog rather than borrowing a walking limit meant for another animal.

What getting too cold looks like

Cornell lists paw lifting, shivering, reluctance to walk and hunched posture as signs to move into a warm, dry area. Merck’s cold-weather guidance warns that weakness, disorientation, shallow breathing or collapse need immediate veterinary attention. Do not wait for shivering to decide whether to call.

What’s in the water after the rain

The CDC explains that leptospirosis bacteria spread through infected animals’ urine and can persist in contaminated water or soil. Flooding and heavy rain can increase exposure risk. This is a reason to avoid potentially contaminated standing water, not to assume every rainy walk causes illness.

Avoid contact with potentially contaminated standing water, not only drinking it. A puddle cannot be judged safe by its appearance. Carry water so your dog is not thirsty enough to go for the gutter, and steer around puddles on trails and verges where wildlife moves. Kerbside puddles near parked cars carry a separate chemical risk. We cover both, with what to do if your dog already drank, in what to do if your dog drank puddle water. Ask your veterinarian about appropriate vaccination and exposure precautions for your dog.

Rain also brings things up out of the ground. A wet week can fill a lawn or park verge with wild mushrooms overnight, and a few kinds are seriously toxic to dogs with signs that can take hours to appear. See are yard mushrooms poisonous to dogs for what to do if your dog eats one. Slugs come out on the same damp evenings, and slug bait goes down in the same season; if your dog ate a slug, the bait is the part to rule out first.

Thunder changes the answer

Rain is a comfort question. Lightning is a safety one, for you and the dog alike. The National Weather Service is unambiguous: “There is no safe place outside when thunderstorms are in the area,” and its rule of thumb is “When Thunder Roars, Go Indoors.” Its lightning safety guidance also reminds owners not to forget pets during storms and to give them proper shelter.

If you can hear thunder, go indoors and postpone the outing; a quick toilet trip close to the door is still outdoors. A dog that is already frightened of storms will not get much from a walk in one anyway — and a frightened dog on a lead in the dark, next to traffic, is its own hazard. If you do have to be out as the light fades, our notes on walking your dog in the dark cover being seen by drivers.

Drying off is a useful part of rain care

Most of the good a sensible rainy walk does can be undone by putting a soaked dog in a cool room. Towel the coat properly — against the grain as well as with it, down to the skin on thick coats — and pay attention to the parts that stay wet longest: the belly, the armpits, between the toes, and the ears on floppy-eared dogs. The National Weather Service’s pet safety tips say to thoroughly wipe off your dog’s legs and stomach when they come in from sleet, snow or ice, and the ASPCA recommends washing and drying feet and the stomach to remove ice, salt and chemicals.

Then give your dog a warm, dry, draught-free place to settle. A dog that goes straight from a wet walk to a dry bed rarely has anything to show for it the next day. Thick, long or matted coats are the ones that need this most, because they can stay damp at the skin long after the surface feels dry; whether it is OK to let a dog air dry explains which coats can be left alone and which can’t. If the part you actually dread is the smell, why wet dogs smell and how to stop it goes through the drying routine spot by spot.

Does a raincoat help?

For some dogs, yes, and for others it is mostly about keeping your sofa dry. A waterproof layer’s real job is to keep the insulating coat underneath dry, which matters for exactly the dogs in the bottom rows of the table above: small, short-coated, low to the ground, very young or old. For a healthy dog with a dense double coat on a mild day, it is a convenience rather than a health measure. We went through that argument in detail, including the downside of overheating, in do double-coated dogs need raincoats? If a coat makes sense for your dog, follow its care instructions and let it dry between outings. Our weather protection shelf has the rain suits we carry.

Before the next rainy walk

• Check for thunderstorms, not just rain. If you hear thunder, stay indoors and postpone the outing.
• Decide the length of the walk by the temperature and wind and by your dog, not by habit.
• Bring water so your dog isn’t tempted by puddles, and steer around standing water, especially on trails and after flooding.
• Keep a towel by the door and dry the belly, armpits, paws and ears as well as the back.
• If your dog wears a coat, have a dry one ready for each outing.
• Watch for slowing down, whining, trying to burrow or seeming weak, and head home when you see them.
• For a puppy, a senior, or a dog with a heart, kidney, hormonal or other chronic condition, ask your vet what their weather limits should be.

Dogs and rain FAQ

Related: can rain cause ear infections in dogs.

Rain is rarely the problem. Cold, puddles and thunder are.

Walk your dog, pay attention to the temperature and to your particular dog, keep them out of the standing water, go indoors when it thunders, and dry them properly at the door. Do those things and a rainy day is just a wetter version of a normal one. For anything that looks like illness afterwards, your vet is the right call, not the forecast.