Tag: dogs

It’s got to the time of year again when I find myself struggling with a small proportion of my fellow humans as I go out and about. It stresses me to the point of irrationality, and really gets my back up.

When it starts to get warmer outside and out pops Mr Sunlight, the animals that have spent the winter hibernating at their pathetically selfish and lazy owners request begin to appear again.

That aside, some of these fair weather dog walkers seem to think it’s ok to take their beloved to the supermarket, or the library, or the local MacDonalds, or the pub, or their work, and leave them there. They think that it’s ok to leave a window open an inch or two and that their faithful canine friends will be ok. On some occasions, they may be.

Is it worth the risk?

It only takes 20 minutes for a child or a dog to die a horrendous death in a hot car. And it doesn’t have to be blistering hot outside for the inside of a car to literally boil them to death from the inside out. Is that the kind of death you want for your child or your best friend.

Every year I come across self-centred, egotistical it won’t happen to me types, who think it is ok in hot weather to leave their dogs. Each time I feel compelled to stay and make sure the dog is ok. If you are one of the several I have called the authorities over, then that is just tough. I’d rather you hated me for reporting you, than risk the life of a dog that I could have saved from an awful death.

A woman at one of the local shops last week left her baby in a car with the engine running, and her handbag on the front seat and was happily queuing inside the shop for more than ten minutes. She got angry when she was challenged about how dangerous that was for the heat, and for the possibility of theft.

My children have had the SSPCA at school. They have been made aware of the dangers of animals and children in hot cars. Seeing a dog left while their owners totter off upsets them. It upsets me.

Don’t risk it.