Leaving Your Pet In A Parked Car Can Be A Deadly Mistake

With the summer months upon us, it’s time for a reminder about the dangers of leaving your pet in a parked car. Whether you’re parking in the shade, just running into the store, or leaving the windows cracked, it is still not ok to leave your pet in a parked car.

The temperature inside a car can skyrocket after just a few minutes. Parking in the shade or leaving the windows cracked does very little to alleviate this pressure cooker.

On a warm, sunny day try turning your car off, cracking your windows and sitting there. It will only be a few short minutes before it becomes unbearable. Imagine how your helpless pet will feel. On an 85-degree day, for example, the temperature inside a car with the windows cracked can reach 102 degrees within only ten minutes. After 30 minutes, the temperature will reach 120 degrees. At 110 degrees, pets are in danger of heatstroke. On hot and humid days, the temperature in a car parked in direct sunlight can rise more than 30 degrees per minute, and quickly become lethal.

Stanford University School of Medicine conducted a study to measure the temperature rise inside a parked car on sunny days with highs ranging from 72 to 96 degrees F. Their results showed that a car’s interior can heat up by an average of 40 degrees F within an hour, regardless of ambient temperature. Ambient temperature doesn’t matter – it’s whether it’s sunny out. Eighty percent of the temperature rise occurred within the first half hour. Even on a relatively cool day, the temperature inside a parked car can quickly spike to life-threatening levels if the sun is out.

Further, the researchers noted that much like the sun warms a greenhouse in winter; it also warms a parked car on cool days. In both cases, the sun heats up a mass of air trapped under glass. Precautions such as cracking a window or running the air conditioner prior to parking the car were found to be inadequate.

Pets are very susceptible to overheating as they are much less efficient at cooling themselves than people are. The solution is simple – leave your pets at home if the place you are going does not allow pets. Read more »

In the UK, we consider dogs to be companion animals and even valued family members. Tragically, this is not the case in the Philippines, where nearly 500,000 defenceless dogs are brutally killed every year for the commercial dog meat trade and specialty dog meat restaurants are widespread. Take action >>

As you read this, helpless dogs are waiting in cages to be slaughtered. They are crammed so tightly together in wire cages they cannot move, struggling for every breath in the stifling heat with their snouts tied shut. The dogs are stolen or rounded up on the street, transported to slaughter in conditions so bad nearly half the dogs die en route in rvs. Those that reach the slaughterhouse alive are clubbed or have their throats cut whilst conscious. Sign the Network for Animals petition to stop the illegal dog meat trade >>

Dog meat eating was banned in the Philippines in 1998. Sadly, the law is rarely enforced, and the penalties are so weak that convicted dog meat traders get off with a slap on the wrist only to return to their cruel trade.

But now there is real hope for the dogs. Recently, lobbying by animal protection groups led to stronger laws that greatly increase fines and include jail time for convicted dog meat traders. With your help, we can get the police to enforce the new law, stop this illegal trade and save countless dogs from a horrible fate.

Please join our friends at Network for Animals in signing the petition encouraging the Filipino government to enforce the law prohibiting the trade in dog meat >>

I want to highlight the horrible advertising campaign by LOOT, the advertising network, called “Flog your Dog” with a photo of a bulldog. I saw this ad in the Evening Standard on 14 August and I was horrified that they could be so irresponsible. I have complained to the Advertising Standards Authority
because the ad promotes the sale of pets through the Loot’s newspaper publication and online ads. It finishes with the wording. “no animals were hurt during the making of this advert. We take animal welfare very seriously at Loot”. I find this ad. offensive and irresponsible, in the way it promotes the sale of a sentient animal as a commodity. I know it is not illegal to sell pets, but trading unwanted animals through classified ads is completely unregulated. It opens the way for puppy farms to make money out of dogs and for those involved in illegal dog fights to obtain animals that are used as bait in these sickening activities.

If you have time, please join me in complaining about these advertisements, which are putting dogs in danger. Anyone who finds they cannot keep their dog any more should take it to a registered animal shelter so that the pet can be rehomed with responsible owners who will care for him, not sold like a second hand car. I am really shocked that the people at Loot allowed this ad. to be published.