[Dailydrool] Dogs in cars

[Pam McQuade]

<<No matter how guilty your Basset makes you feel, leave your dogs at home 
instead of taking them and leaving them in a car. With windows down it still
gets too hot.>>

There is another thing you have to worry about if you leave your hound in 
the car in hot weather: Some crazy person like me, who will report you to 
the police. Last summer, Drew and I were at a local large hardware store. As 
we headed for our car, we saw a sweet looking husky mix, sitting in a car 
with windows barely open. It was a hot day, and we were really concerned 
about the dog.

We tried paging the human, no results.

The animal control man, when he got there, took the temperature in the car 
(yes, he was carrying a thermometer). It was beginning to get dangerous for 
the dog--over 100 degrees in the car.

When the human finally turned up, he couldn't understand the problem (after 
all, his dog wasn't dead, was it?). He insisted he'd only been in the store 
for a few minutes--fewer minutes than Drew and I had been waiting in the hot 
sun for him to saunter out. He claimed he never heard the page.

I got pretty hot under the collar and had to leave before the very end, but 
the offender's claims of being married to an ex-policewoman were not 
working, and the animal control fellow was not backing down a bit. I figured 
before I got arrested, it would be good to leave. The guy was so 
persistently clueless as to the danger he'd put his dog in, I could hardly 
bear it.

When I left, the human was getting a hefty ticket and was worrying about 
what his wife would say when he got home. I would have liked to have been a 
fly on the wall in their home, when he got there.

So even if you'd think of leaving a dog in a warm car, don't. Some crazy 
animal-rescue person might spill the beans on you. But at least your dog 
would be OK.
Pam, food slave to the Dashing Bassets