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Health & Fitness

Summertime Danger - Dogs in Cars

As summer arrives once again , and with it the combination of hot weather and excursions that include pets, a reminder that dogs and the insides of cars are a lethal mix, seems worthy of repeating.The urgency of getting this message out to the public has moved, for me, from placing printed warning material under the windshield wipers of parked cars that contain within, man's alleged best friend, to polite verbal interactions with owners of those same "man's best friend" when they arrive back at those parked cars, to threats to call the local police.Last summer while vacationing along Lake Michigan I had several such interactions with humans who insisted they were "responsible dog owners" who "loved their dogs" and "would never do anything to harm them"...It's easy to quote these folks because they all make similar statements when confronted about why they were leaving their beloved dogs in parked cars with the windows up with only a few inches of breathing space.In one such encounter I found three dogs inside a black SUV parked outside of a beachfront restaurant whose owner was within eyesight of his car while he dined in air conditioned comfort.  Apparently he was operating under the assumption that as long as you can see your dogs while they are suffocating, nothing really bad will happen to them.  As I approached the car, along with my own two dogs, I observed the larger dog salivating and panting hard, both signs of heat exhaustion in dogs.  The other two dogs were barking madly and in obvious distress.  The owner flew out of the restaurant door in an offensive rage as I tried to explain to him that his dogs were in obvious distress and in real danger.  He continued to yell at me to move away from his car as I continued to attempt to reason with him in order to save the lives of his dogs.  Yes the two of us made quite a scene, ending in his promise to relieve his dogs from the hot confines of his car.  I left but circled back twice while getting ready to call the police.  By my second circle back he had the dogs out of the car in the parking lot, but I wondered how long it would be until the next excursion where he stopped for a cold one while his dogs struggled to breathe in a hot car.According to literature on this issue from various animal welfare groups, parked cars are death traps for dogs. "Every year, dogs suffer and die when their guardians make the mistake of leaving them in a parked car—even for "just a minute"—while they run an errand...  On a 78-degree day, the temperature inside a parked car can soar to between 100 and 120 degrees in just minutes, and on a 90-degree day, the interior temperature can reach as high as 160 degrees in less than 10 minutes." (PETA)  The best advice is that"experts recommend not to leave pets or children in parked cars even for short periods if the temperature is in the 60s or higher". (Partnership for Animal Welfare).  Leaving dogs in cars with the air conditioning running is also  not recommended as car compressor systems have been known to kick off when engines overheat, resulting in the deaths of the dogs trapped within.Physiologically for dogs, the problem when overheated is that they don't sweat like humans, but instead cool themselves by panting and sweating through their paws. " If they have only overheated air to breathe, animals can collapse, suffer brain damage and possibly die of heatstroke. Just 15 minutes can be enough for an animal's body temperature to climb from a normal 102.5 to deadly levels that will damage the nervous and cardiovascular systems, often leaving the animal comatose, dehydrated and at risk of permanent impairment or death. " (PAWS)Is it really worth causing your dog intense discomfort, even possibly brain damage or death because you want to take him or her along for a ride?  Leave your precious canine at home if you plan to stop and shop or eat.  Only take the dog if you know you won't have to stop.Dog abuse came to Wyandotte Wednesday night for me when I left a downtown restaurant and approached my car to find a beautiful black and white terrier closed up inside the Ford Escape parked next to me.  The windows of the car were literally lowered no more then an inch.  I don't know how long the dog had already been in the car when I began to frantically search for who the car and the dog belonged to .  I went back to the restaurant and asked several tables if the license plate was theirs.  No luck.  I finally found the owner cashing out at a local store.  She wouldn't make eye contact with me as I tried to connect with her about what a sweet dog she had and how easily her dog could suffer or even die in a closed car.  It was 81 degrees when I got home, so I can only imagine how hot the inside of that car had become while the dog's owner shopped and left the dog with little to no breathable air inside the car.  I watched the woman drive off with her little dog and I felt my heart go out to both of them.  A tragedy avoided...this time.

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