I was on my way home from the art supply store and had no plans on stopping by my favorite thrift store (to look for things I could use on my hummingbird water fountain) but I thought I would make it a fast stop. It's a small store so I was only in there a few minutes but just as I was leaving a frantic woman came rushing into the store screaming that she had left her dog locked in her car while she was shopping and she could not get into her car. I just happened to be parked next to her so I ran to her car window to see a pit bull obviously dead from the heat. I don't know where her keys were but she picked up a huge rock and started throwing it at her window to try to break it ... it wouldn't break. I went to my glove box in my car and found the "window breaker" that my daughter had given me at least 15 years ago ...
to my surprise, one hit with this little thing and her window shattered! The woman came and pulled her dog out of the car (right onto the broken glass ... it had been dead so long that it's legs were already stiff). I'm screaming at her not to pull her dog into the broken glass. Next thing I know she is going into the back seat of the car and pulled out another dog (I had only seen one dog so I was surprised to see a second pit bull). She pulled it across the pavement and tossed it onto the grass (poor dog hit it's head on the big rock that she had tried to break the window with ... so I'm screaming at her to stop). Then she runs back towards the thrift store and I'm trying to give the dog chest compressions because I can see that it is not dead yet. So the woman comes back with a garden hose and starts spraying the dog with water ... I'm screaming at her again to stop because I was afraid that the dog would go into shock. She did stop, so I had her do the chest compressions and talk to the dog. The police arrived (3 or 4 cars), a police officer took over the chest compressions and another woman came to help him but the dog died. Animal control arrived. And the paramedics arrived, the woman was a complete wreck by now and needed medical attention.
I was there for about 2 hours since I was the main witness, I broke her window, and tried to revive the dog. I had to give my information to several officers. The woman told the police that she was only in the Thrift Store for 20 minutes and she swears that she left the air conditioner on in the car for the dog (all the windows were up and the car was locked). She was blaming the dogs by saying that they must have turned it off somehow. The store volunteers that were outside watching told me that she was in store about 2 hours (yes, they told the officers the truth about the time). The animal control officer told me that they could do testing on the animals to see the temperature that they died from and then they would be able to charge her with a crime depending on what they found.
Two beautiful dogs lost their lives in a horrible painful way ... for no reason.
PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE NEVER LEAVE YOUR DOGS IN YOUR CAR ... NOT EVEN FOR A FEW MINUTES.
