Leaving dogs in hot cars - DON’T DO IT!!

If you’ve read my blog in the past, you’ve likely seen me write rant about people leaving dogs in cars only to find them dead when they come back. Well, here ya go…here’s another one about two geniuses in Maine who left not one, but two dogs in a car while they went shopping at Home Depot. Sure, they feel bad about it now, but why didn’t they think about what they were doing before they left their dogs in an oven to die a grueling death?

Authorities are investigating the deaths of two dogs left inside a car during this week’s hot spell.

According to Ellsworth Police Lt. Harold Page, a mother and her adult daughter parked their car at a Home Depot on Wednesday afternoon and left their dogs inside the car while they shopped. When the women emerged from the store about 45 minutes later, the dogs had died from heat exhaustion, police said.

[…]

According to the Bangor Daily News, the dog owners said they left their dogs inside the car but kept the engine and air conditioning running. When they returned to the car, the engine and air conditioning were not running. Police later observed the air-conditioning controls were in the on position and the keys were in the ignition.

Davis Instruments has information from a study done in 2002 on how hot it can get in parked cars. Does this really sound like something you want put your pet through?

Finding: On a day when the outside temperature was 73° Fahrenheit, it took only 20 minutes for the temperature sensor inside the car to reach a lethal level of 107° Fahrenheit.

Finding: On a day when the outside temperature was 86° Fahrenheit, it took only five minutes for the temperature sensor inside the car (placed in direct sunlight) to reach 132° Fahrenheit.

Finding: On a day when the outside temperature was 86° Fahrenheit, it took only 10 minutes for the temperature sensor inside the vehicle in the shade to reach a lethal level of 109° Fahrenheit.

Please, if you have your dog with you and you feel you MUST go in somewhere, either take the dog in with you (some places allow this) or take the dog home. Or if, as in this case, there are two or more of you, have one person stay outside with the dogs. Use your head a bit folks, if it’s too hot for you to sit in a hot car, it will be for your dog too. And, your dog doesn’t know how to turn the A/C back on if it goes off!