"BC SPCA press release: The heat is on, so the BC SPCA is urging pet guardians to play it cool"

The SPCA's press release was printed in toto by an unknown number of BC newspapers, as most BC SPCA press releases are. Not often has a matching news story like the one in the Cowichan Citizen been so embarrassingly timely.

Because the SPCA did not attend to the report of a dog in possible distress, or soon to be in distress, even critical distress if something weren't done to cool down the dog, the owners were not charged as they should have been.

Animal protection is primarily the SPCA's mandate, not the RCMP's. The SPCA was long ago given the power to enforce animal cruelty statutes by the BC Legislature.

According to the SPCA's p.r. material, a dog in a car in temperatures as high as 40 degrees Celsius (100 degrees Fahrenheit) "can withstand high temperatures for only a very short time — usually just 10 minutes — before suffering irreparable brain damage or death."

The SPCA ignoring a call about a dog in a broiling hot vehicle is not a new story to me. The story I remember best was told to me by a dog owner who I met at a park. The dog in question was in a car parked on a Vancouver street, the window cracked open a few inches (that barely, if at all, makes any difference to the temperature in the car). He called the SPCA and was told they would send someone out. The man waited. He squirted water into the dog's mouth. He called again, and again he was told someone was on their way (the Vancouver SPCA was about five minutes away). After a further 10-15 minutes, he phoned the Vancouver City Police who came immediately, forced the car door open, called for a tow-truck, put the dog into their car after giving it more water, and drove away, loudly voicing impolite imprecations against the SPCA for doing this again.

The man told me that up to that point he had been an SPCA donator, but never gave it another penny.