AND THE HEAT GOES ON...

(06-29) 08:25 PDT PLEASANT HILL -- A woman was arrested on suspicion of animal cruelty after her dog died when she locked it in her parked car in the heat in Pleasant Hill, police said.

I don't know what it is going to take to finally get the message through to people:  It's not okay to leave a dog locked up in the car. EVER!  This is animal cruelty, which is a punishable offense.  GO DIRECTLY TO JAIL!  Just when I think we are making progress, I see headlines like this in the news.  The woman in this story won't do it again, one hopes.  Unfortunately, it's too late for her boxer.  Tragically, the dog died.  I hate to think of how much it must have suffered before the police finally came and broke the window to get the dog out.  I wonder how much time had passed before that happened?  By the time the dog was taken to a vet, it was too late to save its life.  The damage had been done.  

Note that the dog was left in a parking garage.  Parking garages get hot, too, on these blistering summer days.  Just because a car is left in the shade doesn't mean the interior won't heat up to dangerous levels for a pet.  It doesn't take much time for that to happen. Boxers are especially vulnerable to overheating because of their flat noses.  The dog's owner was obviously ignorant of that fact.  The same is true for bulldogs, pugs, and other flat-nosed breeds.

Why didn't the garage attendant just break the window, instead of waiting for police to arrive?  Parking attendants, or anyone, should be authorized to rescue pets left to die in parked cars.  It's high time to introduce a new law that absolves people of any wrongdoing when they break a car window to save an animal in distress inside a locked car in hazardous conditions.  I don't know what this boxer's name was, but we should name the law after that poor dog who died in a hot car to represent all the others that needlessly die the same way.  A car window is just glass and easily replaced.  Its value is far less than that animal's life, which can never be replaced.