Too hot for you? Too hot to leave a dog in a vehicle

WASHINGTON — A dog sits panting in a locked car on a hot day. What do you do? The Humane Society of the United States says you should call your local animal welfare agency, or the police.

In many jurisdictions, like Alexandria, Virginia, it’s against the law to leave a dog in a car on a hot day. By 1 p.m. on Thursday, Ken Howes, an animal service officer with the Animal Welfare League of Alexandria, was working on his third call regarding a dog left in a hot car.

On the last call, he pulled an English Setter from a locked car.

“The owner made it pretty easy for me, they left the windows cracked about six inches.”

But even that, says Howes, isn’t enough to keep a dog from a possible episode of heat exhaustion or heat stress. Car interiors act like ovens in hot weather and the simple act of leaving a car’s windows open does nothing to circulate air to cool an animal.

In this case, Howes says the dog “drank a ton of water as soon as he was out of the car, then we put him in my truck where the AC was blasting on him.”

When Howes found the owner, he says she clearly felt bad, but — in his words — he “read her the riot act” and fined her.

Not every jurisdiction in the area has laws against leaving a dog confined in a car in hot weather, but animal welfare workers say it’s always a bad idea. A car’s interior can heat up to 120 degrees on an 85 degree day, and that’s with the windows left open.

Humane officers say they often find dog owners who are traveling with their pets and leave them in cars while touring or running errands. Officials with the Washington Humane Society say a good rule of thumb for traveling or exercising with your dog in warm weather is: if you think it’s too hot, it is.

Contact information for local animal welfare agencies: