Two weeks ago in the Leicester Mercury there was an article about a police officer near here (can't remember the exact jurisdiction) that left his police dog in his patrol car when he went into the POLICE STATION. He said he was just going in for a minute, but got distracted. Some time later he went out and the dog had died. The article of course ended with the fact that it costs nearly £10,000 to train a dog. But the real problem is that the animal suffered and died alone on the hottest day of the year.
At the vet I worked at in Virginia, one of our patients was a survivor of this same thing. He and his sister (Saint Bernards) were left in the Walmart parking lot - they were three months old. Concerned citizens called the police and SPCA, who busted in the window. The sister dog died, and the brother dog was "stunted" for lack of a better word. He was taken away from the owner, and adopted out to one of our clients. He didn't grow to his full size, and was a bit mentally handicapped his whole life because of the damage suffered by his body temperature rising so high.
It makes me so mad. There's just no reason for it. I've run errands with my dog, but only on really really cold days. Just think about a time you've been out, and you get somewhere early and cut off the car and have to wait. Your body heat in a small environment is trapped. That in combination with the sun makes the temperature rise. It's just so easy to prevent...
Okay, sorry about the rant. It's just a really sore subject for me.
