This was posted on a Yahoo group and I think it's interesting

[LeftyMom]

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/antihuntingcoalition/message/341

"Well, I just had an experience today dealing with a dog locked inside a hot car.

I was in a store when a woman came in looking for the owner of a red minivan
with a dog locked inside.

According to her, the dog had been barking frantically for quite a while but had
now stopped. She said she had already alerted mall security, LAPD, and Animal
Control. I accompanied her back to the vehicle, requesting that she look for a
rock with which I could smash one of the windows.

By the time we arrived at the car, the family had returned. LAPD and Animal
Control were there. Another bystander was screaming, "Shame on you!" to the
vehicle owner. I was explaining to the children that leaving water was not
enough - that the windows had to be open. I told them how the temperature will
go into the triple digits inside a closed car within a few minutes.

They pulled out a limp, panting black toy poodle and placed her inside a cooled
compartment in the Animal Control truck to bring down her body temperature. I
hope she has not suffered brain damage.

I realize the owner was on the defensive, but she started giving me an attitude
- how it was none of my business. I told her that her dog would have been dead
in another couple of minutes if I hadn't made it my DAMNED business - and asked
if that would have been the preferred outcome in her view. I informed her
further that I was about to break the window to smithereens and retrieve the
dog.

That led to an interesting discussion with LAPD and Animal Control, who told me
that breaking the window and removing the dog would have constituted vandalism
and felony burglary. I proceeded to tell THEM in no uncertain terms that such
had been precisely my intention and would be my course of action in future
should I encounter the same situation again. I inquired whether they thought a
window was more valuable than a life.

I then proceeded to tell the crowd of onlookers that the proper thing to do was,
indeed, to break the window and get the animal out. I said, "I am advocating
that you commit a crime in order to save a life. I am doing so in front of
several LAPD and Animal Control Officers. If any of them wish to arrest me, they
are welcome to do so. Let them step forward now!

Not one did."

[NMMNG]

1. Bravo for Lindy

I can't believe jerks who leave their animals in vehicles like that. Would they sit in a closed vehicle with the windows closed and no vent/ac? :grr:

[LeftyMom]

2. Wearing a fur coat no less.

Assholes! :grr:

[sbj405]

3. arrrghhh. I hate people who do that.

Here, they have signs that if you see an animal in a car, you can call 911. Of course, my friend did and no one came.

[mzteris]

4. My husband was nearly assaulted

for calling the police about a dog in a locked car. The guy was a total jerk about it. Thank goodness the police was there or it would have gotten totally out of hand.


Another time I called the police about a dog - he went from store to store in the shopping center looking for the owner. I was about to give the dog water from a water bottle through the teeny-tiny crack in the window, but the policeman saw me and said I "couldn't" . . . WHAT????? About that time I saw a woman heading for the car, so I left as I didn't want to get into it with her (and I had my younger son with me.) When I left the she was "arguing" with the police.

[flvegan]

5. Depending on the laws of the particular State

(California, I believe being one of them) I think that the cop is wrong. Breaking the window and taking the dog is vandalism and burglary, possibly willful destruction of property. However "opening" the window (even if it, say, breaks) is simply destruction of property. All violations of law. However, when done in the interruption of a felony (animal cruelty) it'll get trumped in any court, so long as the person is charged.

I had a good long argument with MY attorney once over this very thing (me, parking lot, dog in car, dipshit security). When I posed that no jury would have convicted me, he told me that no competent prosecutor would allow any talk of any dog outside if he/she being the property taken. I raised the felony issue, replacing dog with small child. I asked if that would be felony kidnapping, if I didn't go anywhere and had witnesses? What if I was witnessing a strongarm robbery, and I clocked the perp with a bag of ice; is that battery? If I took it from the store freezer, is that theft, too? "Besides, P, wouldn't you, in my defense, subpoena the surveillance parking lot tapes? Video showng a distraught customer, a long period of time during which the subject vehicle's windows are up? What temperature was it that day? There's the alleged breaking of the window. What's that? A dog? What temperature was it again? That dog looks sick. Handed him over to animal control. Looks like they're treating him. You weren't trying to steal him?" That's my argument, anyway.

I say break the window if the animal is in obvious distress. You getting out of jail is easier than getting that dog out of being dead.

[LeftyMom]

6. That's my thought.

I don't think prosecution would be at all likely anyhow. Scoring a conviction for a window breaking dog rescuer isn't going to get anybody promoted and resources are stretched thin, so who's going to bother when it's obvious that it will be fought?

[flvegan]

7. Kind of like

ramming a ship whilst engaged in illegal whaling activities, only on a much, much smaller scale.

*holds crowbar aloft*
"One small swing for dog, one giant smash for dogkind."

[LeftyMom]

8. It's funny

Ask most any average person, and in the same situation they believe they'd break the window. They can get behind liberation on the small scale. But if it were 300 dogs in a lab, if somebody breaks a window to save thier lives, that's a crime.

I don't understand people sometimes, dear.

[Critters2]

10. I thought the same thing as I posted my answer

re: possibility of prosecution. As I typed that no prosecutor would dare, I thought "yet they do for similar cases with more animals".

:wtf:

[Critters2]

9. I agree

at worst, it would be some kind of station adjustment/mediation/restitution thing. If it went to mediation (I'd love to mediate THAT one!), the car owner would probably not ask for much of anything, and probably wouldn't even go through with it. But no prosecutor worth her weight would bother with such a thing. They're politicians first and foremost, and there's nothing to be gained by prosecuting a dog rescuer.

[BrklynLiberal]

11. A friend of mine broke car windows several times when he was in

High School working in a supermarket gathering up the shopping carts in the parking lot. Idiots would leave their dogs in the car while they would go in to do their food shopping!!!!! He had no regrets whatsoever.