DENVER — A dog died after being left inside a hot car while the owner was golfing Tuesday morning, witnesses and the Jefferson County Sheriff's Office said.
Witnesses saw the distressed animal, a German shepherd, in a car parked in the Foothills Golf Course parking lot. They broke one of the car's windows with a golf club to remove the dog and start administering CPR, sheriff's office spokesperson Jenny Fulton said.
Fulton said the call about the dog came into dispatch at 11:50 a.m. and a deputy arrived on the scene at 12:05 p.m. Animal control arrived by 12:15 p.m. People administered CPR, but were unable to save the dog.
A witness who watched a woman perform CPR on the dog said the scene was "absolutely heartbreaking." The man said he went on a golf outing with friends and they were "brokenhearted to see it, but so many people rushed to the dog's aid."
The owner of the dog returned to the car about 1 p.m. and was issued a summons for animal cruelty, Fulton said. The man will have to appear in court.
Fulton said the dog's owner told deputies that he parked his car in the lot at 8:45 a.m.
"We want to emphasize again that you cannot leave your dog in cars on hot days," Fulton said. "Leave them at home. It's frustrating and you hate to see this happen."
Colorado is one of 15 states that currently allows a person to break a window to save a life of a child or pet. The law says: “A person is immune from civil and criminal liability for property damage resulting from his or her forcible entry into a locked vehicle” to rescue an animal, but only under certain conditions.
The Denver Animal Shelter is also seeing a rise in calls from people reporting pets being left in hot cars as temperatures reach extreme levels.
The shelter tweeted out a warning to pet owners Monday reminding people that temperatures are even hotter inside a car after they rescued a dog from a car that reached 130 degrees.
The shelter tweeted out a picture of a pug visiting the Denver area from Texas who needed to be rescued from the extreme heat by animal protection and Denver Fire. His owner faces a cruelty charge.
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