ocpets.freedomblogging / CC

… and, elsewhere, another dog cooks to death in a hot car.

Common sense steers most adults clear of certain threats, like smoking in bed, eating rancid leftovers, and leaving the kiddies in the car while you chug beers and ogle strippers. A man in Florida apparently didn't get the memo on that last one.

Yes, we're disgusted. But are we surprised? Not really, because PETA and KIDS AND CARS, an organization we teamed up with last year, both receive countless complaints regarding dogs and children who are left unattended in hot cars.

According to KIDS AND CARS, hyperthermia—a rapid and often fatal rise in body temperature—is the third-leading cause of death in children in vehicular incidents that are unrelated to traffic.

And PETA receives alarming reports of dogs who succumb to heatstroke within minutes when people fail to realize how little time it takes for a car interior to heat up. On a 78-degree day, the temperature inside a car can climb to 97 degrees in just 10 minutes. Dogs can only cool themselves by panting, so they can quickly succumb to heatstroke and suffer brain damage or death.

Rolling down the car windows slightly does not offer adequate relief.

Please remind everyone you know that it's always best to leave the children and the dogs at home with the A/C (and a sitter) on "errand days" as well as "stripper nights."

Posted by Karin Bennett

image.examiner / CC

Back in October, we told you about the geniuses (sarcasm alert) in Clay County, Florida, who decided that the best way to figure out whether a dog had died from heatstroke when an animal control officer left her in a sweltering truck was to—wait for it—put another dog in the sweltering truck and see if that dog would suffer horribly too. (Fortunately, he survived and was returned to the city animal shelter.)

Like I said: geniuses.

As you might expect, we filed a criminal complaint, but the prosecutor's office refused to take the case. So, because the Clay County brain trust had decided that they were qualified to conduct experiments on animals, we filed a complaint with the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) because this impromptu experiment appeared to violate numerous Animal Welfare Act (AWA) regulations.

Now, the USDA has cited Clay County Animal Control for no less than five—count 'em, five—violations of the AWA. From the USDA's memo:

Clay County Animal Control does not have an IACUC [Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee]. No protocol was prepared, and a veterinarian was not consulted for this project. There were no searches for alternatives, nor were there any attempts to demonstrate that this project did not unnecessarily duplicate previous experiments.

The animal control brainiacs said that they didn't think that this kind of atrocity experiment was regulated, but, as the USDA official dryly noted, "I explained to them that this was." Apparently, the explanation was slow enough and used one-syllable words, because the violators understood it well enough to assure the USDA that "they will not perform any research activity in the future." Phew!

Clay County's dogs (and other animals) should be able to rest easier—and so should the human residents, as it's now likely that county officials will think twice before deciding that they're qualified to, say, perform open-heart surgery.

Posted by Jeff Mackey