Barrie Advance

 

September 2, 2008

 

Although summer is slowly coming to an end, I would like to remind people not to leave your pets unattended in your car.

 

I'm a police officer and I recently responded to a complaint regarding a dog left in a pickup truck. The owner left both the windows completely rolled down and tied the dog's leash to the centre seatbelt clip. The owner was even thoughtful enough to leave the dog some food and water.

 

What the owner didn't realize was that the leash wasn't tied short enough. The dog had enough slack to jump out the open driver side window. Unfortunately the leash wasn't long enough for the dog to jump to the ground below.   As a result, the dog wound up strangling to death. The owner, who was working in a nearby shop, came out when they saw me standing beside their truck.

This person claimed that they had just checked the dog "10 or 15 minutes ago", even though by this time, I had been on-scene for 40 minutes waiting for an OSPCA Investigator to attend.