Leaving Dogs in Car Story

This story broke my heart.  A needless death of two healthy dogs.

 Never leave your dog in a car on a warm day.

"On Thursday evening I had to take my 11 year old bitch to Emergency Vet. She has been exhibiting back pain.  She is fine!

But while there I over heard the most sad situation playing out in the next exam room.
 I saw a man come out and said... "Please where is the Vet?"
After about 5 minutes I heard the vet talking to a family.. I heard a scream and crying. I thought that what ever the situation was the dog or cat had passed away.


 As I could over hear talking and another person coming down the hall, I then heard arguing and screaming again. This must have been the parent of the person who was screaming, my assumption a teenager had the news of her pets passing. The yelling began.....the profanity was abundant, and the picture of what must have happened then hit me.

I believe the young lady was out with her boyfriend (who was in the lobby) and they had the dogs with them (yes 2).  They either left them in a closed car or left them in a closed car with the air on and the car ran out of gas while they were inside somewhere for a long time... the dogs expired from heat prostration!

The father was yelling "what the ---- were you thinking, this did not have to happen, this is going to kill your mother, the poor dogs, your stupidity killed them! And why didn't you call 911 or break the -------  windows and get them out!  The screaming went on and the father left.  When I left an hour later the young lady and boy friend were still there.

So long story short....... NEVER GO INTO A STORE OR A SHORT VISIT SOMEWHERE AND LEAVE YOUR PETS IN THE CAR RUNNING--- THEY CAN RUN OUT OF GAS OR STALL AND THE ANIMAL WILL SUFFER A HORRID DEATH!"

Linda P.

 Good article about dogs in hot cars:

http://www.usatoday.com/life/columnist/pettalk/2009-07-14-dogs-in-hot-cars_N.htm
Excerpt:

"So maybe this will help: a graphic description of exactly what occurs when a dog (and it's almost always dogs, since few people take cats for rides) is closed in a hot car.

Plano, Texas, veterinarian Shawn Messonnier, who knows something about hideous heat and animals and who has written several books, including Unexpected Miracles: Hope and Holistic Healing for Pets, out next month, agreed to be brutally descriptive about the process and physiology of heat stroke.

First, he says, it's important to understand that the temperature doesn't have to be in the 90s for a car-bound animal to be in deep trouble. At much lower temperatures, particularly if the sky is cloudless, the humidity high or the car dark-colored, a vehicle becomes a sauna fast. And cracking windows a few inches accomplishes practically nothing (though many owners of now-dead pets thought it would).

In fact, researchers learned that when it's a sunny 78 degrees, the temperature in a parked car with windows cracked rises at least 32 degrees in 30 minutes. So: 78 degrees to 110 in half an hour.

"A matter of minutes, five or 10 minutes" is all it takes on a hot day for a dog to wind up organ-damaged or dead, Messonnier says.

Here's how it progresses: First, the dog pants hard, trying the only way it can to cool off. As the temperature rises and the dog realizes it's in trouble, it becomes frantic, tries to get out, scratching at windows or digging at the seat or floor. It's an awful moment, the dog's moment of realization. "If you want to compare it to humans," says Messonnier, "it would be this: The person is too hot, stifling, feeling trapped. But a person knows things can be done," like smashing a window or blowing the horn for help. Dogs, of course, panic, since they can devise no strategies other than digging desperately. They often bloody themselves in this effort to survive. Some have heart attacks.

The panic doesn't last long. Very quickly the dog goes prostrate, begins vomiting, having diarrhea and lapsing into unconsciousness. Organs are disintegrating. "All organs function properly within a certain temperature range, and when body temperature reaches a certain level, organ cells begin dying. There's inflammation, white blood cells rush in … a cascade of things happens in minutes," he says. Liver, brain, kidneys are dying.

"When you do an autopsy on a dog that died this way, the organs are soupy."