Sometimes, it’s necessary for adults to leave a dog in the car on a hot day. If you’re really worried, you should monitor the dog to see how long it’s left there. If you immediately call the police, you’re acting like a giant busybody. Take it upon yourself to return to the location in 30 minutes, an hour, etc., to see if the dog has been taken care of. Chances are, it will have been.
I’m not a fan of dogs being brought into places like convenience stores, outdoor restaurants and such, especially if they’re “scary” dogs like pitbulls or rottweilers. No need for me to feel afraid while shopping. But if you make leaving dogs in cars a giant taboo, bringing them EVEYRWHERE will become the norm.
That’s what I was going to say. If the owner couldn’t be found and the dog was in distress, and there was no one willing to come unlock the door in a timely manner, then recording the dog and breaking the window would be the only option.
True, but what about the fact that this approach isn’t dickish enough? When an opportunity to be a huge dickish busybody is yours for the smashing, anything less is a waste.
I can’t believe you really want to make leaving a dog in a hot car a zero tolerance situation. What if a parent leaves a dog in a hot car for 10 minutes while they go in to pick up their kid from school or band practice? What if the person leaves a dog in a hot car when they need to render assistance at a nearby accident? Still a taboo?
I remember being left in hot cars all the time by my mother (admittedly, I could always get out if I wanted to) in the 1990s while she grocery shopped. I was usually in the car with the dog. My mother is the most loving person I can imagine. It kinda scares me what today’s nannies would have done to her. Criminal charges? Smashing the window and sending me off to CPS?
Why is the dog in the car in the first place if the parent knows its hot and knows they’ll have to leave the dog in a hot car?
It’s 89F where I am now. You come sit in my car with the windows cracked, and I’ll go grocery shopping. You stay in that car until I come back, and tell me if you think that’s acceptable to do to an animal that does not have the ability to open the door and leave.
This happened to me in Hamilton Ontario, just two weekends ago. My sister and I took my nieces out to eat at McDonald’s. When we pulled into the parking lot, we noticed a vehicle that had it’s hatch open (Toyota Highlander SUV). Thinking that someone was unloading something, we went into the restaurant. Came out 40 minutes later, and the vehicle is still there with the hatch open. One of my nieces notices that there is a dog in the car. Glad a good Samaritan didn’t close the hatchback.
Relevant facts: temperature was 40C (104F) with the humidex. No water for the dog. Both back windows were completely open, as was the hatchback. Dog did not appear to be in distress but was panting pretty good. Long haired black dog, and older, if the white hair on his muzzle was any indication.
Called the police and two cruisers showed up in about 10 minutes. One officer stuck his hand into the car and said it was noticeably hotter in there than outside, despite the fact that the car was pretty much open.
The police went inside and got the gentleman who owned the vehicle while a McD’s employee brought water out in an empty salad bowl.
When I left, the police were still talking the gentleman (said they were going to give him a warning).
Plus if they do manage to jump out, not only will you have a dog on the loose in a busy area, unsafe for everyone around, but you’ll also have a dog jumping out onto asphalt with bare paws on a 90 degree day.
There was a lot of green space and shade (the car was formerly parked in the shade, but was in the sun as an hour had passed). That being said, the best case scenario is that you’ve now got an unleashed dog outside on a 100 degree day, with no water. Sub-optimal.
Ironic, because the SO said everyone in Tennessee had their dogs chained to trees. She said there were a lot of skeletal-looking horses tied to trees too. Whenever she sees ASPCA commercials on TV, she says, ‘Yeah, you obviously haven’t made it to Tennessee.’
Important point some people may not be aware of: dogs do not deal as well with heat as humans do. In fact, humans appear to have significant evolutionary adaptations for shedding heat – we deal with overheating better than most other animals.
Dogs pant, but panting is a poor way to dump excess heat compared to bare skin, sweat glands, and losing heat through the head the way humans do. Like most animals, dogs depend on being able to move out of direct sunlight, restrict their activity, and access water to control their body temperature.
A car that seems bearable to you might be lethal to a dog. And in my experience, people ALWAYS underestimate the time they’ll be away from the car. I’ve waited by cars while monitoring dogs as suggested above many times, and every time someone returned to the car, they swore they’d been gone much less than the amount of time I’d been waiting, having noted the time.
gracefulfatsheba cautions against making a zero tolerance situation against dogs in hot cars and you counter with 89F for the duration of a grocery shopping trip?
Guess what, you’ve offered absolutely nothing helpful in the discussion of whether or not there should be a zero tolerance policy for dogs in hot cars. What about 74F for 5minutes while running in to grab the kid out of day care? What about 69F for 3 minutes while running into QuickieMart for a slushie? 69F isn’t a hot day? Who decides what’s a hot day?
Telling teenagers that they’ll overdose on marijuana isn’t helpful because they’ll see that their friends aren’t overdosing on marijuana and they’ll just wonder what else you’re lying about.
Someone who makes a habit of running into the store while they leave a dog in the car is not going to respond to hyperbole and hysterics. They’ve left the dog and come back to find the dog alive. The way to fight ignorance on this issue is with helpful education. What temperature constitutes a hot day? After how many minutes does what may seem like a “quick stop” to a human become dangerous for a dog in a car?
Do you want to get people to stop leaving dogs in hot cars?
Or do you actually feel better that there are people leaving dogs in hot cars so that you get to tell everyone what a better person you are than they are?
Even if the answer to “Should there be a zero tolerance policy to dogs in cars on a hot day?” is “YES! There should be a zero tolerance policy!”, it’s still not a helpful enough answer because it doesn’t educate as to what qualifies as a hot day.
It’s an entirely valid question for gracefulfatsheba to raise, and anyone who truly cares about animals should answer the question in a helpful manner.