NIT – An NIT reader told of a puppy left in a potentially dangerous situation over the weekend.
According to this Mason City resident, at about 6:30 PM Saturday, June 21, a concerned citizen called Mason City police about a yellow lab puppy in a small red car, inside a kennel, parked at the Mason City library. The car owners – two younger males – were inside Music Man Square attending a wedding.
A police officer was dispatched to check the welfare of the puppy, and arrived at 6:37 PM. The officer spoke with the vehicle’s owner about the complaint. They claimed to have been periodically checking on the animal. The officer then left.
At 7:20 PM, two young males could be seen in the parking lot putting a young yellow lab puppy into a kennel in the back of little red Pontiac from Jones County.
At 7:22 PM, they headed back to Music Man Square. At this time, with a temperature reading of 84 degrees and sun, a second person made a call to Mason City Police. The person was told that an officer had already talked to the dog owner, and no police came back.
At 8:07 PM, two males and a female came to look at the puppy. The puppy was taken out of the car and replaced back into the kennel within three minutes, by 8:10 PM. They three went back inside to the wedding festivities.
The citizen said she had checked on the puppy – which she said was panting – until the sun and temperature started to drop. The puppy was still in the kennel at 9:00 PM.
The city of Mason City’s web site advises “Don’t leave your pet in a parked car”. On the page designated for the Animal Control Department, it states “Never leave your pet unattended in a parked car for any period of time. On a warm day, the temperature in a parked car can reach 120° in a matter of minutes—even with the car windows partially open. Your pet can quickly suffer brain damage or die from heatstroke or suffocation when trapped in high temperatures.”