California State Capitol. Photo credit: California State Assembly Website
Who let the dogs out? Brown did.
Californians will soon be able to rescue pets trapped inside of cars by breaking their windows thanks to a bill recently signed by Gov. Jerry Brown.
The bill, AB 797, takes effect in January. California State Assembly members Marc Steinorth and Miguel Santiago proposed the legislation after finding inspiration in a similar law in Tennessee.
Eleni Lewis, Steinorth's legislative aid, said her camp found out that Tennessee had passed a right to rescue animals act. “We heard this news in early August of 2015, so we just saw that and immediately thought: What law in California is like this?" she said. "After some research we found out that we really don’t have one. You can only break into a car, say, to save a baby's life, but animals were not protected.”
Chico Animal Services Manager Tracy Mohr says the law has its limits.
“Before someone can break a car window of a distressed animal, you have to get in contact with dispatch (911) first,” Mohr said. "It is important to know that you cannot just break the window, rescue the animal and everything is done.”
Lewis agreed.
“We need to make sure that people know that you have to complete these steps before you actually start taking a bat to the window sort of thing.” she said. “That is one of our main focuses now that it’s been signed is trying to do some sort of PSA-type of public awareness that there are a few requirements involved and it’s not just free reign.”
Before AB 797, animal control or law enforcement were the people to take the distressed animal out of a vehicle and then give the owner a citation. One concern about the new law, Morh said, is the inability of authorities to determine if an animal really was in danger before the window was broken.
“If you add another person in there, what if our animal control person shows up and the dog is actually cooled off at that point since it’s been awhile?” Mohr said. “So can they write a citation then because what would that citation be based on? Because now we lost the information on was the dog in distress. I don’t know. I didn’t see the distress. All I know is that someone took the dog out of the vehicle.”
The animal owner will either receive a fine or have the opportunity to fight the citation in court if they wish. A law enforcement officer or animal control worker will have the authority to make a case for the citation.
The only way dogs can cool themselves off is through evaporative cooling, which happens when they pant.
“Once their temperature is higher than their body temperature is, it really is not efficient. It’s like here if you have a swamp cooler and it works great when it’s 90 degrees, but when it’s 100 degrees it doesn’t work so well,” Mohr said.
Some signs to tell if they are beginning to overheat is that they will be panting but there is no saliva. Sometimes their tongue can get bright red or even purple.
If the dog has been in the car for quite some time and its body temperature continues to get even hotter, the dog can eventually collapse.
“The dogs can have seizures because what is happening is that their internal organs are beginning to shut down. They then can potentially go into a coma and then end of dying from it” Mohr added.
When the severity gets to that point, Chico animal control would take the pet to Chico animal shelter where they try to revive the dog and cool down it's body temperature. If they are a not able to, they then take the dog to a veterinarian.
“Our San Bernardino County Sheriff was in strong support of the bill because they get so many calls about this. They have not received a report of a dog that has died, but they do get calls of dogs being trapped in cars all the time.” Lewis says.
When they get a call about a trapped animal, animal control or Chico police are typically quick to respond or find the owner.
“That’s the one thing I notice the bill does not talk about, having the person try to find the owner of the vehicle immediately before they do anything.” Mohr said
“Another concern would be if a citizen breaks into someone’s vehicle and then that person happens to come up on the scene before a law enforcement agent or animal control agent shows up that there might be some sort of altercation between the pet owner and the person that is taking the animal out of the car.” Mohr said.
“What we’re going to recommend to people and even our animal control officers is that most people have a cell phone; video the dog before you remove it from the vehicle so you can actually document if it’s truly in distress and have that evidence,” Mohr said.
Law enforcement and animal control officers have some concern when citizens takes matters into their own hands by breaking into vehicles if a dog is not in any distress or immediate danger.
“Not that people are necessarily against this bill, but they have concern about how it’s written. Time will kind of tell in terms of once it goes into effect if there are a lot of people doing things they shouldn’t,” Mohr said.
By Tom Sundgren