It has sometimes been said that no good deed goes unpunished but when you find yourself face-to-face with the reality of that statement, it can be quite shocking. That was experience of one concerned citizen, who saw a dog stuck inside of a car during the hottest part of the year.
Most of us realize that dogs are not able to stay in the car when it is hot outside. They can quickly be overcome by the heat and in many parts of the world, you can legally break a window to get the dog out of the car. This particular confrontation took place at the beginning of August between an anonymous dog owner and a small crowd of citizens who were concerned about the health of an animal.
That group was at a beach and they saw a French bulldog inside of a car that was parked at the Frensham Greater Pond in Surrey, England.
The owner had left the dog in the car and it was 95 degrees outside! Holly Marie Evans was one of the beachgoers and she took a video of the dog, who was clearly in distress inside of the hot car.
They contacted the park rangers at around 12:20 PM. The dog was breathing erratically and they knew that something had to be done right away.
The park ranger called the police but they weren’t fast to react either. It is a good thing that the owner had left the windows cracked a few inches or the dog likely would have died before then.
The group of visitors was passing water through the windows to try to cool the dog down and keep him hydrated.
40 minutes had already passed and things were getting worse. The dog inside the car started to show signs of heatstroke and he started vomiting in front of the group of onlookers.
They still couldn’t find the owner of the dog so they felt they only had one option left, they grabbed a hammer and broke the passenger window. It allowed them to pull the dog out of the car.
It took a while before the dog’s condition started to improve and he was vomiting outside from being overcome by the heat.
Many people would say that breaking the car window is an extreme maneuver but they felt that the dog would have died if it had been left inside of the hot car.
The group of visitors took the dog to a well-shaded area, put out some water and waited for the owner to return. It took hours before the owner arrived.
After four hours, he came back to his car. You would think you would be happy that his dog was saved but quite the opposite was true.
Holly’s video shows that the situation escalated quickly. The owner was confrontational with several of the rescuers.
He just didn’t seem to understand why they would be convinced about the health of his dog. He didn’t believe that they should have smashed his window to save the pup.
Holly said this to a local news station: “We waited for just over four hours in total for the owners to return. They weren’t remotely interested in the dog’s welfare and were more concerned about the broken window of the car. No thanks was given, just abuse and threatening behaviour.”
The Ranger gave the dog back to the owner and reminded him of the dangers of leaving animals inside of a hot car. According to the RSPCA, an animal rights protection organization, it is up to the witness to decide if a broken window needs to take place to remove the animal from the car. Even if it is a life-and-death situation for the dog, the owner of the vehicle can still press charges.
“If the situation becomes critical for the dog and the police are too far away or unable to attend, many people’s instinct will be to break into the car to free the dog.
If you decide to do this, please be aware that without proper justification, this could be classed as criminal damage and, potentially, you may need to defend your actions in court.”