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CynthiaWVirginia -> RE: The Heat and Pets (6/22/2010 12:41:10 AM)
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~~~~~~~~~~~~fast reply~~~~~~~~~~~~
This thread really brought out a lot of intense feelings. You know me, I have to toss in my two cents rather than just let this pass.
I would never have phoned the police. The dog had probably been in the car millions of times and had been fine...dogs ride in cars here in WV all the time. Owners often go to stores during the cooler hours or on overcast days. I have lived in many states, including California, Texas, and Florida, and people try to judge carefully when it's safe...and some small percentage fail.
About it being easy to see an animal in the car, hah. I have two cats that jump into my minivan when I get home. They're a pain in my a**. I have three rows of seats and lots of hiding places and a few times one has been locked in by accident. When we've gotten one cat out, another sneaks in. I only let my males outside, as they were used to being outside before I got them. Griz would sh*t all over the house if I didn't let him outside, and Cyrano would stand on the monkey's tail talking a blue streak until we went stark raving mad.
A few years ago, when my friend and neighbor Carin was still alive, she kept bags of dog food in her little car. While she unloaded groceries, my cat got into her car and she couldn't see him...had no way to guess he had done this. She accidentally locked him in. In the sun, all windows up, not in the shade, and it was in the 80's. When he didn't come home that first night, my son and I drove up and down every street within a few blocks of the house, looking for his body and calling his name and stopping to listen for an injured cry. It never came. The next morning, I phoned the humane society and gave a description, phoned all the veterinarians in our town and in the nearby towns...described my boy and told them if he showed up injured that I would take financial responsibility and left my phone number. I also called the city and talked personally with the dog catcher, as well as the guy who had to scrape dead animals off the road and cart them away. The next morning, we knocked on neighbors' doors again, and I was sadly leaving Carin's when I saw my boy plastering himself to her inside car window, feet on the glass and mouth wide open, soundlessly screaming his head off. She was so upset when she opened her car. He'd lost a lot of weight but was okay. I was very lucky. (I used to work in a vet's office, and knew how to baby him and give some Pedialyte.) As for loss of brain cells...I don't know. He was always big and stupid. :)
Bottom line, most people love animals and wouldn't dream of hurting pets. We try our best but accidents happen. We grieve. I know twenty minutes of suffering was hard...but is death ever easy? People screw up, they learn and are much more careful in the future. Personally, I wish all animals who died slowly from being hit by a car and having their entrails splattered out all over the road had a chance to overheat and pass out in a car instead. But that's just me. Yes, I had to watch and listen to a cop scraping a puppy in that kind of predicament off the road into a box, I was a pedestrian with my toddler and it was horrible. The screaming was horrible. Nobody was arrested or reported...because it was an accident.
I've also had the unfortunate experience of hitting animals with my car, one cat, one black kitten, and a skunk, each time was an absolute horror. Nobody arresed me for animal abuse. That one town might have, if they only knew I was the one who ran over that skunk.
All these people who want pets to have perfect lives with perfect owners...think about this. All those animals taken away by the police, where do you think they go? Most of them are put to sleep, which is a sugar coated word for killed. I've held animals down while they're given that shot. It's not "sleep" and it's not pretty. There are never enough homes to go around. Animal rescue can only handle/save a drop in the bucket, I assure you.
There's a huge difference between an abused animal...and a horrible, unfortunate accident. Cry if you need to...then do something. Go to that site and get those nasty notes to put on people's car...heck, why not go all out for public humiliation and take a cam corder and be sure to get closeups of the animals panting and the license plate of the vehicle. I'm not kidding. Take it to a local news station. Put out fliers on all vehicles, reminding them about animals and kids in cars...kinda like those annoying pizza fliers we used to get in California. Then...donate your time to animal shelters, and offer to be foster mommies. One woman I know took in a mom cat with her newborn...she'd had one baby unexpectedly and this changed her from adoptable to death row. The woman fostered her until the baby was old enough to be adopted.
Instead of getting upset, do something positive. Try to get free or low cost spay and neutering clinics available in your area. If someone has an animal and has to take a bus...but bus won't allow...offer to be the driver. Anybody can donate money to a good cause, it's quick and easy.
It's horrible to see a complete character assassination on someone who was only human, and made a mistake. I knew a man once who had a little daughter...who brought home a baby kitten. In the night, the kitten crawled in bed with her daddy, and while he was sleeping he rolled over on it. The crunching sound woke him up. Should he have been put in jail and taken away from his little daughter because he was careless, should have known better, and abused an animal? Think about this.
I believe it's Sweden, but one country has harsh laws about animal abuse, and can punish people if their gold fish's water isn't clear enough...I saw this in a reputable magazine years ago. I wonder if adoption rate of animals dropped drastically after this law was passed and enforced. The life in pounds and humane societies should be as precious as a life in a car...and yet one "should" be labeled as abuse and deserving of jail time and the other sanctioned.
I'll drop this subject like a rock now, and not come back to make more comments. You don't want to get me started on the suffering I've seen...when owners aren't psychic and their animals decide to find some fun. I'm the lucky person who had to hold an animal down while the vet pulled out quills, some forgotten fish hook in the bushes, or dried foxglove flowers from ear canals...and worse. These were not ABUSED animals, just ones with loving owners who wanted them to enjoy life and took them to the doctor when the ouchies happened. Some were eaten by coyotes or died from snake bites...or they died from cancer. They were dearly loved and sorely missed.
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