OSPCA puts heat on animal owners

Barrie.CTVnews.ca
Aug. 6, 2014
Courtney Heels

Dogs left in cars in the summer are a daily problem for OSCPA agents, and now they’re starting to keep track.

The numbers appear to be high: about 20 calls a day for animals in hot cars and a lot of those calls are coming from our region.

When it's warm and sunny out, most of the calls come from parking lots and agent Brad Dewer is responding to them all too often.

“Unfortunately there are many excuses that we do hear,” says Dewer. “’I left the windows down.’ ‘My dog loves car rides.’ ‘We were parked in the shade.’ ‘I was only in there for five minutes.’”

But “the reality is, there's no good excuse for leaving a pet unattended in a vehicle,” Dewer says.

It keeps happening, however.

“Those calls are coming in from all over Ontario but predominately we're seeing those calls from the Muskoka area, all the way down to Toronto, Durham to Peel,” Dewer says.

This is the first year the society is keeping tabs on the calls they get at the central dispatch centre in Newmarket. The problem is, there are only 100 investigators for the entire province.

There is one investigator in York Region, two in Barrie, and another two in Muskoka.

If the OSPCA gets a call for a pet in a car, and an investigator isn't close, police will step in.

“Often times, York Regional Police will be able to respond to situations faster than the Ontario SPCA right now,” says Sgt. Clint Whitney. “Simply because of the geographical area we cover. So when we get a call for this, it's something we'll respond to.”

Just last month, police in York Region charged a woman for leaving her retriever in her hot vehicle in Vaughan.

It only takes minutes for an animal to get sick, suffer brain damage, or even die.

If an OSPCA investigator or a police officer responds to a call where they find a pet in a car and the animal is in distress, the person responsible can face a fine or even jail time.