Summer is a great season—except for people leaving dogs in hot cars while they run last-minute errands. As any reasonable person knows, leaving your pet in a sweltering vehicle under an unforgiving sun is a terrible idea.
But how to really drive how that message? PETA thinks it knows.
The animal-welfare organization has enlisted Arizona Cardinals safety Tyrann Mathieu to submit to an uncomfortable experiment. Watch as Mathieu, who used to be called “the Honey Badger,” demonstrates what happens when you leave your dog behind in the car.
“Jesus Christ,” Mathieu exclaims as he enters a car in which it is 97 degrees. Within 4 minutes, the temperature rises eight degrees and Mathieu begins sweating profusely.
From there, it’s simply a journey of sweat, rising temps, and Mathieu wondering how someone could ever leave his or her pet in this situation.
After eight minutes, when the temperature in the car is 120 degrees, Mathieu say he’s had enough and escapes. As Mathieu’s experiment shows, though, a dog can’t simply pull on the door handle to break out of a boiling hot vehicle.
Overall, it’s a powerful message.
Even police officers who work with dogs aren’t immune to this bad judgment. As this story was being filed, the following appeared on Twitter.
Georgia police K-9 dies after being left in handler’s hot squad car http://t.co/Cbjh6pHcow
— Atlanta Journal-Constitution (@ajc) July 17, 2015
