Dog, car, WTF?

[Polenicus]

Why not just leave the dog at home? I've never understood this strange obsession people have with dragging their animals around wherever they go. Leave the doggy at home while you run errands, then take the doggy for a nice long walk/run when you get home.

Except... this is a GAS STATION. Chances are this person was on their way somewhere they wanted to take the dog, and was stopping for gas. Some dogs even LIKE car rides, and insist on coming along.

Remember what I said about evaluating ALL the factors. YES, if this person had left the dog in there for an extended period, regardless of the windows being cracked and it being cloudy, this would suck for the poor dog. But this person was literally leaving them in the car to go inside to pay for gas, and maybe grab a twinkie. This was not an extended shopping run. This was not a planned errand. This was a 'Oh crud, tank is getting low, I should stop, and maybe get a slurpee while I'm here'

Before you condemn the person, what would YOU do in their place? Don't say 'leave the dog at home', because if you have a dog, and a car, there is going to be a time when you have that dog in the car, and are running low on gas, and you know it. Unless you plan on never taking the dog to the vet, or leaving them at home alone when you go on family vacations (Because taking them to the kennel would involve putting them in the car, naturally)

'Dog' + 'Car' does NOT equal 'Bad'.

[Mongo Skruddgemire]

Not to be too nit-picky.....I am a dog-lover, and I simply don't take him with me when it's hot out, but the temperature's you claim are a little off.

A car's temperature at 75 degrees will rise approx. 40-50% over the period of an hour if left in the sun. That equates to about 102-110 degrees after one hour. Now you will get a large amount of that increase in the 15-30 minute range, but generally not the numbers you claim in the first 15 minutes. So going in and paying for his gas should not harm his pooch.

Not to mention that the temp increase is dependent on an external source of heat AKA the sun. If the gas station is like so many in this country these days, there is a shade over the pumps to keep rain off the customers. So a car that is in the shade will generally stay in the same ambient temperature range as the outside.

What makes the car get so bloody oven hot in the summer is the fact that the sun keeps pouring more and more heat into the car faster than it can dissipate.

M

[Gravekeeper]

The study I was reading found that neither parking in the shade nor cracking the windows had any sort of significant effect. It literally, and a bit surprisingly, only made a difference of a 1-3 degrees in the long run. It slowed the speed of the initial 30 minute spike but did very little for the eventual max temperature.

The key problem, as Mongo said, is that the car cannot dissipate the heat in any way shape or form. It really is just a steel sauna on wheels.

[Mr Yuck]

Except... this is a GAS STATION. Chances are this person was on their way somewhere they wanted to take the dog, and was stopping for gas. Some dogs even LIKE car rides, and insist on coming along.

Remember what I said about evaluating ALL the factors. YES, if this person had left the dog in there for an extended period, regardless of the windows being cracked and it being cloudy, this would suck for the poor dog. But this person was literally leaving them in the car to go inside to pay for gas, and maybe grab a twinkie. This was not an extended shopping run. This was not a planned errand. This was a 'Oh crud, tank is getting low, I should stop, and maybe get a slurpee while I'm here'

Before you condemn the person, what would YOU do in their place? Don't say 'leave the dog at home', because if you have a dog, and a car, there is going to be a time when you have that dog in the car, and are running low on gas, and you know it. Unless you plan on never taking the dog to the vet, or leaving them at home alone when you go on family vacations (Because taking them to the kennel would involve putting them in the car, naturally)

'Dog' + 'Car' does NOT equal 'Bad'.

I agree 100%! The person went inside to pay for gas on a 75 degree day. The car was not gonna be 100, or 120 degrees inside when they came out a few minutes later.

Also calling the cops would be a waste of time. The lady would be even more nuts if she tried to keep the guy there, and I don't know about the police where you guys live, but around here they are not gonna waste any effort trying to find someone who left their dog in their car while they went in to pay for gas.

[VenomX]

Well if she had called the police, she may have waited a long time. The some times take hours to get there if at all. LOL

Yes theres a canopy above the pumps.
He ran inside to buy cigarettes, not to pay for gas. At the place I work WE pump the gas for you and you pay the guy that pumped it for you..

[Pagan]

Unless you plan on never taking the dog to the vet, or leaving them at home alone when you go on family vacations (Because taking them to the kennel would involve putting them in the car, naturally)

We never took either of our dogs with us on trips nor did we ever put them in a kennel. They were outdoor dogs to begin with and we have a big back yard. Just had someone stop over and check the water and food.

Plenty of shade back there in the summer (Domino especially liked to lay over in the tree well by the fig tree, particularly after it was watered. Smart girl - cool and shady). We also have a storeroom that had a doggy door that they could go in and out of and a nice, comfy warm house in there for the winter. Not to mention that my dad rigged up a heater for the storeroom. Yes, our puppy dogs were spoiled!

[Peppergirl]

I am a HUGE animal lover, and I'm the type who would go ballistic when an animal is left in a car for any long length of time, but I really think this gets carried too far in a case like this.

When I had a dog, I ALWAYS took her for rides and if it was nice out, I'd stop for gas (go in and pay) or stop for smokes (go in and pay), several times. I was never gone more than 5 minutes. I never, ever left her when it was hot, even for a minute.

For this woman to act like this over a dog being left in a car, when its 75 degrees out and the man just ran in for a pack of smokes and will be long no longer than a minute or two, is just plan ridiculous.

[STEELMAN]

There are a lot of nosey people in the world. I have 2 German Shephers that go in or out when they want. They were out in the back yard on one hot summer day, when one such busy body knocks on my door and proceeds to tell me that I need to get them in because it is way to hot for them outside. I then tell her that they will come in when they decide to through their doggy door, that she better round up all the wildlife because they have to stay out in these temps all the time, that if I didn't have ac it would be hotter inside, and that she had better get off my property and mind her own business. She gave cat butt face and turned and marched away.

[RecoveringKinkoid]

Well, here's the thing. They always say they are only leaving the car "for a few minues." In all but the rarest of cases, I have to call BS on that.

If you all are closing a store, and someone wants to come in and they swear they'll "only be a few minutes", do you let them in? Of course not. Because they are gonna be longer than a few minutes. They will seriously underestimate the amount of time they will be in your store.

So I'm of the opinion that you plan your trip accordingly. I had a dog I drove around with some. I never, ever left him in the car alone. Not for 15 seconds. I planned my driving. If I had to run an errand that couldn't wait, dog didn't ride with me. I might get out, pay at the pump, pump my gas and then drive away, but that is not leaving him alone. If I had an errand that required me to walk into a place, leaving him, that errand didn't get done at that time.

[Saydrah]

*applause for RK*

I do take my dog with me everywhere I go on the weekends, EXCEPT for shopping trips where dogs aren't allowed and I would have to leave him outside. I schedule those separately. Weekends are my dog's time with me, and I don't want to leave him home alone at all then if I can help it. But scheduling all my errands for the same couple of hours, planning the trip intelligently, and leaving the dog at home saves time and gas as well as eliminating any need to leave the dog in the car.

I've occasionally left him secured in the car while I run into a store in the fall or winter in ~50 degree weather, at night with no sun to turn the car into an oven. Even this is very rare and I can count on one hand the number of times in the 2 years I've had Gus that I've left him unattended in a car, and all were after dark and at a store small enough that he was never out of my sight.

Of course, there's also that a well-behaved dog is welcome in many places you might normally not expect to see a dog. He's come, with permission, into several hardware stores, JoAnn fabrics, and a Walmart (the kind without a grocery department, which seem to be extinct as of about this year )

I think if I were approached by someone angry that my dog was left in my car in one of those situations, I would be a little shocked (especially since he's a black dog, not obvious in the dark unless you peer into my car's windows looking for him, and doesn't bark while in the car) but at least would understand that they mean well. I would personally rather get yelled at when my dog isn't in danger, but know that person will be the one who does do something when a dog IS in a car in summer heat and in danger, not one of the 20 people who walk by and don't say or do anything while a dog (or child!) is dying of heat stroke.