By Geoff Smith (@smithco on Twitter)

Demonstration brings home awareness of animals in hot vehicles

Jun 26, 2017 | 2:40 PM

LETHBRIDGE — After just 20 minutes of sitting, the dashboard of Skylar Plourde’s truck was 55 degrees Celsius.

That’s according to a thermometer that measures surface temperature only; the air inside the cab would have been a little cooler. But still a lot more than a dog could handle.

“Animals react totally different to the heat than we do,” said Plourde, an animal care and control officer for SPD Animal Services. “The big one is that they don’t sweat from the skin. The only way for heat to escape from their body is their tongue and the pads of their feet.”

Plourde was at the Lethbridge Animal Shelter to demonstrate the dangers of leaving a pet in a hot car, both to deter pet owners from doing it and to encourage anybody who sees an animal in a vehicle to call animal control.

Plourde said an internal temperature of 41 can result in organ failure or death. And while the good news is that it hasn’t happened in a “very long time” according to Plourde, the risk is always there. He added there have been 10-13 calls this year, after 36 last year.

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If it is determined an animal’s been left in a vehicle without adequate water or ventilation, the owner can be fined $100 under a city bylaw. And that’s if the pet isn’t in distress.

“If an animal’s found to be in distress, someone can be charged under the Animal Protection Act, which can result in bans from owning animals, fines up to $2,500, or jail time if it gets to that point,” he added, though there hasn’t yet been such a case.

Plourde urges people who see an animal that might be in distress to call animal control and provide a location and description, and best of all a licence plate. What they should not do, he added, is take the matter into their own hands, for example by breaking a window, which could leave the third party liable for damages. Animal control is available 24/7 to respond.

He also covered off the dangers of driving with a dog or other pet in the open box of a truck, which could be hazardous to the animal or other people on the road. The legal way to do so is tethered to the truck bed, with a leash, or in a kennel that is itself secured.

An animal can be carried in the passenger compartment as long as it doesn’t interfere with the driver or the field of vision.