Animal control officers say it only takes 10 to 15 minutes from the time you leave your pet in a hot car for the situation to turn tragic.
A man is accused of leaving his cat in his car with the windows rolled up in a parking lot on the 9800 block of W. 87th Street across from the Johnson County Central Library. The cat was found in 90-degree weather panting. This cat was lucky to be rescued in time.
“They become lethargic, not alert, sometimes if you see an animal in the vehicle it’ll be at the lowest place within the vehicle to get out of the sun,” Alexis Rivera, an animal control officer for the city of Overland Park said.
“Right now, it’s pretty hot there is no breeze. The animal is not going to be able to get significant air flow to help them,” Rivera said.
If you spot any living creature in a hot vehicle there’s something you can do.
“Just give us a call if you’re not sure and we’ll go out there and check on it,” Rivera said.
“Getting animals out of vehicles is pretty rare,” Rivera said.
She also said it is common for the number of animal neglect calls to go up as the temperatures rise.
“We’ll go and check on the animal say the animal isn’t showing signs of distress at that point we will leave the scene because there is no violation at that time. If time allows we’ll go back and check on the vehicle,” Rivera said.
The cat rescued from the hot car is at the moment sheltered at the Great Plains SPCA.
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Source: kshb.
