CANADA -- Two people have been charged after a husky was found panting and drooling in the back seat of a sweltering truck on Canada Day.
An Ottawa Humane Society officer found the dog named Bako in the truck on a day when the temperature reached 26 C (78.8 F).
By the time the officer arrived after a witness called, Bako had been in the car for almost an hour.
The officer pulled Bako from the truck, which was parked in sun with the windows slightly open.
Bako was taken to a veterinary hospital for treatment before his owners picked him up the next day.
Luce and Michel Bourassa from Laval were charged with permitting distress and failing to provide adequate standards of care.
They are scheduled to appear in court Aug. 8.
Ottawa Humane Society Insp. Miriam Smith said in a statement owners should never leave their pet in a car.
“You might as well have turned on an oven. It’s that hot,” Smith said in a statement. “Even with all the windows rolled down, it just doesn’t help.”
Every year, Ottawa Humane Society officers respond to hundreds of calls for pets left in vehicles.
Bruce Roney, the society’s executive director, said he did an experiment on a cloudy, but warm day.
Roney closed the windows of a vehicle and the temperature went up by 10 C in 15 minutes.
He cracked the car’s windows, but the temperature hardly changed.
“There was almost no difference,” Roney said. “You’re talking about a metal box sitting in the sun.”
(The Ottawa Citizen - July 5, 2013)
