This is a pol.
Hopefully able to have multiple choices. :dubious:
You get to be both the perp and the concerned citizen.
You have a car or truck that does not overheat at idle.
You favorite dog, cat, raccoon, duck, what ever wants to go for a ride when you need to go the mega store for a bit. ( You may use anything up to 1 hour as your definition of ‘bit.’ )
It is a hot day.
Your A/C keeps the inside nice & cool.
Would you leave a critter inside, with a window cracked just a little?
Would you ever do this? As the perp. ( The yes & no & maybe choices. )
The other choices are for when you are the concerned citizen.
You may add qualifiers.
You may follow tangents of which I suspect there will be some.
One day, I was walking my dog, when an un-collared, lone dog started eyeing us. It was standing in an intersection, so I was concerned about it’s safety. As I was walking at the time, the best I could do was invite it to walk with me and my dog. So I did, and the dog walked with us. It was a huge Samoyed, and I let it into the laundry room of the apartment building I was staying in.
So I put both dogs into my small pickup truck for the ride to animal control- Chicago Ridge, Il. U.S.A.
It was 70 or so degrees outside, and my dog waited in my truck with the windows 1/3 of the way down while I dropped off Andre The Samoyed. While I’m in there some crazy cat lady ( or dog lady, who knows ) comes in ranting about the lab left outside in the truck!
No good deed, indeed.
If you leave a dog in a car in the sun with the windows rolled up, even if your car is idling and the AC is on, you do run the non-negligible risk of having your window broken by a concerned though ignorant animal lover.
Mojo the Wonder Mutt was a great dog, except that he absolutely couldn’t be left home alone if we valued our relationship with our neighbors. He would raise mortal hell the whole time we were gone. He spent quite a few trips waiting in the (locked, running, air conditioned) truck while we picked up groceries or ate dinner or such. And that was all fine until Mo learned how to roll down the window and let himself out to go find his Daddy. Nothing like the waitress coming to your table to ask whether you have a German shepherd that might be at the front door, looking for you! After that, we invested in a dog box for the back of the truck, and limited our excursions to mornings or evenings during the hottest part of the year; or we dropped the dog off to play in my mom’s back yard if we had to do something during dangerously hot weather.
And Tony and his K9 handling colleagues all leave their cars running with the dogs inside at work, when they’re taking reports or eating lunch on shift or taking a restroom break. There’s a whole big file at the sheriff’s office of complaints about handlers “wasting taxpayer money by leaving their cars idling all the time.” (Even though all of the K9 cars are clearly marked in several places.) But the General Public, as a rule, are stupid.
So no, I don’t have a problem seeing a dog in a climate-controlled vehicle.
I wouldn’t do this (my dog rides in the back of the truck), but if I saw it - car running and it’s obvious the AC is on - i.e. I can see the fur being blown around and/or the window is cracked and I can feel cool air coming out - I wouldn’t do anything. However I would think the driver was an asshole for idling his fucking car. Just leave the pet at home on hot days.
We tried that with Mojo once, before we moved from the apartment to the house. Before I got inside the grocery store (a five-minute drive,) the neighbors had called to report very much noise. Got home to find that the dog had chewed his way out of his crate*, and had started chewing/clawing the front door to get out. Leaving him at home really wasn’t a feasible option.
*Very smart dog. He didn’t gnaw on the door/grate itself, but on the spring that actuates the latch. Once the spring came off, he was free. Same dog figured out how to open the door to let himself into the patrol car, and how to open the window to let himself out of the pickup.
I do this on occasion. My dog comes to work with me most days, depending on the house I’m working at or if the job is inside or outside. If I go to lunch on a hot day I park the truck where I’ll be able to see it and leave it running so the puppy has AC. I have 2 sets of keys so it is locked while running.
I’m not really a fan of doing so, I burn enough gas as it is. If I can drop I the dog at my shop or house.
There is always the fear some concerned citizen might try to break a window.
I hate leaving my car running while I’m in it and not driving. I’m not leaving my keys in a running, unlocked (I don’t have a spare on my person) car. If an animal has to be left for a few minutes, park in the shade, roll down the windows a bit. A few minutes = a shopping trip is too long.
But also, most people assume that a car can be “ON” but not “STARTED” for only a few minutes before it kills the battery. This is generally not so.
