Dog left in hot car
Seattle, WA (US)Incident Date: Friday, May 27, 2005
County: King
Disposition: Not Charged
Case Images: 2 files available
Person of Interest: Gerri Anderson
Imagine being locked in a car during this hot weather. The heat's unbearable, even with the windows cracked. One local woman just learned the hard way -- if humans won't stand for it, why should a dog?
4-year-old Bruno was lapping water like there's no tomorrow late on May 27, 2005. And there might not have been. That's why police were on the scene. Bruno spent his morning locked inside a car while his owner Gerri Anderson was at work.
She parked in the shade around 9 o'clock that morning. She cracked all the windows. An hour went by, and the sun burned down. Then another hour. Bruno waited through the lunch hour.
Marcia Leary watched in disbelief. "And then all of a sudden, he started trying to really get out of the car," she said. From the looks of the interior, Bruno tried to "chew" his way out! He tore out the door moldings-clawed at the windows, practically ripped the ceiling to shreds.
Bruno was in the sweltering car until 1 o'clock. Luckily for Bruno, Marcia Leary's a dog groomer.
"One of my customers flagged down the police," she said. But the cops could only call animal control because no laws were broken. They were just waiting when Gerri finally came back out.
"I thought it would be okay," Gerri said. "I came out and checked up on him twice and I thought he would be OK. I gave him some water." But in weather like this, cracked windows and a little water are not enough.
"Even if you're parked in the shade; even if windows were cracked open, the inside of a car can get to be 160 degrees or more," said Eve Holt with the King County Humane Society. "It can cause heat exhaustion, brain damage or even death for a dog."
Bruno is OK now. And Gerri promises she'll find a safer place to leave him while she's at work. References« WA State Animal Cruelty Map
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