Being a 20-year-old pet owner, I know what it means to say that your dog is your baby. There are things that you do for your child, like buy them the best dog food and toys around, giving them lots of loving and treats or tying feathers to their tails and watching them go crazy trying to catch it.
And, of course, there are things you don’t do to your child — above all, leaving them in a hot car while you run errands.
The Good Samaritan law that was just enacted in Florida can give passersby the temporary authority to smash a car window in order to save a dog locked inside. A lot of people would say that this should be considered a crime and is just as dangerous as leaving a child in the car.
“It’s inhumane to leave any animal in a locked, hot car,” said Emily McQuaid, a junior nursing major. “Whoever does so deserves the same punishment.”
If you haven’t already, watch the YouTube video “How Long Can This NFL Player Tough It Out in a Hot Car?” and see just how bad it can really get if you actually experience it yourself.
The video was created by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals and featured NFL player Tyrann Mathieu sitting in a parked car with the windows cracked in 90 degree weather for 15 minutes.
In that kind of weather, even with the windows cracked for air circulation, the temperatures can quickly reach 120 degrees. After just two minutes, Mathieu started sweating profusely.
As a lot of people already know, dogs cannot sweat, so they do not even have a way to cool themselves the way we do. At 105 degrees, heatstroke begins to set in, and the dog’s vital organs begin to fail.
“I completely support it,” said Emmy Calise, a junior business management major. “I had to call the cops once on someone who left their dog in the car for over half an hour in the summer, and it was obvious that it was struggling to breathe.”
On average, a person going into a restaurant or grocery store tends to be there for, at the very least, ten minutes. Ten minutes is a long time to be locked in a car just waiting.
Although, some people don’t see it that way.
“I don’t think a dog would die inside a car if they were there longer than 30 minutes if they had the A/C running and a supply of water, unless they have other problems,” said Farrah Pruskauer, a sophomore philosophy major.
Be that as it may, Florida and Tennessee have been the only two states to put this law into action. Other states have yet to see the importance of a law that protects the health of dogs.
But, when thinking about this, just remember Tyrann Mathieu, a professional NFL player that has gone through multiple tests of physical strength, could only last eight minutes in a hot car.
So, how long can your dog take?