Brachycephaly – is it bad?

Mammals often must dissipate excess metabolic heat to maintain the desired body temperature, typically by use of conduction and evaporation to transfer heat to the surrounding environment. Some mammals, such as humans, horses, sheep, and goats, rely on evaporation of sweat for heat dissipation. Dogs lack extensive sweat glands and must rely on evaporation of water from moist mucous membranes of the respiratory tract for thermoregulation and dissipation of excess heat. Although respiratory evaporative cooling is just as effective as sweating on the basis of the amount of heat/mL of water evaporated, thermoregulation by respiratory evaporation of water is less efficient than sweating for several reasons.
Source: Advances in Small Animal Medicine and Surgery - Category: Veterinary Research Tags: Respiratory Medicine Source Type: research