Burns in Dogs: Cool With Water, Skip the Butter

Cool running water for a full twenty minutes, then cling film. Everything else in the kitchen cupboard makes a burn worse.

There is a lot of folklore about burns and almost all of it is wrong. Butter, oil, toothpaste, flour, baking soda: every one of them traps heat in the tissue, adds infection risk, and has to be painfully scrubbed off before a vet can even see what they are dealing with.

The actual treatment is dull and free. Cool running water, for longer than feels necessary, then something clean and non-stick over the top, then the vet.

What to do

1. Get the dog away from the source. For a chemical burn, wash the chemical off with water before anything else. For an electrical burn, switch off the power before you touch the dog at all.
2. Check the breathing. If your dog has been in smoke or fumes and its breathing sounds laboured, the airway itself may be burned. That changes the priority: get moving rather than staying to cool.
3. Cool the burn with cool running tap water for ten to twenty minutes. A tap, a shower, a hose, or the area held in a basin of cool water. Twenty minutes is longer than most people manage, and it is the part that does the most good.
4. Keep the rest of the dog warm with a blanket that does not touch the burn, because dogs lose body heat quickly while a burn is being cooled.
5. Cover it loosely with cling film for the journey. It keeps dirt out and does not stick to the wound. Loosely, never wrapped tight.
6. Muzzle the dog if it is in pain, unless its breathing is compromised. Burns are agonising and even placid dogs bite.
7. Ring for an emergency appointment, whatever the size of the burn.

Why every burn goes to the vet

Because burns lie about how bad they are.

The most severe burns, the full-thickness ones, can be painless, because the nerve endings have been destroyed. So a dog that is not making a fuss is not evidence of a minor injury. Meanwhile a burn that looks trivial on the day can swell, blister and become infected over the following 24 to 48 hours, and electrical and chemical burns can cause damage well below the skin you can see.

What not to do

No ice, no iced water. Cold that extreme causes the vessels to clamp down and can add frostbite damage on top of the burn.

Nothing from the kitchen. No butter, oil, vaseline, toothpaste, flour or baking soda.

Do not pop blisters or peel loose skin away. The blister is the body's own sterile dressing and it is doing a better job than anything you can put there.

Do not rinse a chemical burn towards the eyes, mouth or genitals. Direct the water away from them.

Do not keep cooling indefinitely. Twenty minutes is enough, and a dog that has gone cold and started shivering needs a warm car and a vet, not more water.

What you are looking at

• Reddened, raw or pink skin with the hair singed off: superficial
• Blisters, weeping, or skin that looks shiny and wet: partial thickness
• White, leathery, charred or black skin: full thickness, the most serious, and often the least painful
• Singed whiskers or fur around the face after a fire
• Coughing, gagging or wheezing after smoke: suspect an airway burn and treat it as immediate
• Pale, peeling or bloodied paw pads after hot ground

The burn most dogs actually get

Not fires. Pavements.

Tarmac, paving and sand in summer get far hotter than the air, and hold that heat well into the evening. Burnt pads are one of the most common summer injuries there is, and they are entirely preventable.

Use the back of your hand. If you cannot hold it comfortably on the surface for seven seconds, it is too hot for your dog to walk on. In a heatwave, walk on grass, walk early or late, and remember that a dog will keep walking on a surface that is hurting it because it is following you.

Sources

This article was written using guidance from PDSA, the UK's largest veterinary charity, whose Pet Health Hub is written by its own vets and nurses; AVMA, the American Veterinary Medical Association, the professional body representing US veterinarians; and RSPCA, the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, the UK's oldest animal welfare charity. This guidance is for general information and does not replace a consultation with your own veterinarian. In an emergency, always contact a vet. Read [how we write our health guidance](https://rochsociety.com/how-we-write-our-health-guidance/). Last reviewed July 2026.