Do Not Leave A Pet Inside of a Scorching Car

Every summer news stations, rescue groups, and veterinary clinics remind pet owners that temperatures are rising and do not leave a pet inside of a scorching car.

Yet for some reason summer after summer people still manage to ignore the warning and end up suffering a terrible and unnecessary loss.

Not leaving a pet in a hot car may seem like common sense. Why would someone leave a dog in a car that gets hot enough to bake cookies in?

But what most people don’t realize is leaving your pet in the car for even a few minutes is enough time to cause serious damage.

Once a dog’s body temperature moves into a dangerous range they will begin to suffer from dehydration, brain damage, nerve and cardiovascular damage, and death, according to Paw Rescue.org.

And a dog’s body temperature hitting the danger zone will happen quickly in the Arizona heat. Heat Kills.org made a chart showing just how hot the inside of a car gets in as little as 10 minutes.

What’s worse, just because it may feel nice outside does not mean the interior of the car is also cool.

The chart shows that an outside temperature of just 70 degrees is actually 89 degrees inside a parked car after 10 minutes, and a whopping 104 degrees after 30 minutes.

This is plenty of time, and plenty hot enough, to cause serious or permanent damage to an animal.

And leaving the windows cracked is also not a safe or smart alternative. RedRover, a non profit animal protection organization, conducted a study showing the outside temperature versus a car’s inside temperature with all four windows cracked.

The study concluded that even with the windows rolled down it did not provide enough relief from the heat to prevent heat stroke or death in pets.

Even people who have left the air conditioning running have not been able to prevent a pet’s death.

Owners leaving their dogs in the car with ice water and the air conditioning on have returned to find their air system’s compressor turned off because the engine became too hot from running, and the car only blowing hot air.

In two instances pet owners attempted to leave the air on only to return to a sad scene, according to Paw Rescue.org.

Remember, even if it’s just for a few minutes, it’s a few minutes too long to leave a pet in the car. Shaded parking, air conditioning, cracked windows or water will never be enough to keep your pet cool and safe inside a car under the Arizona sun.