To the editor:

This past weekend, my daughter and son-in-law were visiting us from South Dakota. While meeting to say good-bye downtown, where I work, they parked in a downtown parking lot. My daughter and son-in-law have a small purebred dog they love and take great care of. Since there were leaving for home, they brought their dog with them and left her in their vehicle with the windows partially open.

When we came back to the parking lot, there was a group of people gathered around their vehicle waiting to see who the villains were that had done this dastardly deed. One man verbally attacked us, yelling obscenities. We also discovered that animal control had been called and their dog “rescued” from their locked vehicle. Even the police were called, although I personally suspect they were mostly concerned about out-of-control people.

In talking to the police officers, I learned there is a city ordinance that you can’t leave a dog in a vehicle when the temperature gets over 80 degrees (I came back to my office and checked – and sure enough, the temperature was right at 80 degrees). Animals are an important part of life, but when we start making laws like this one (and ones like not keeping a dog on a leash for more than an hour), and people react violently and abusively to dogs left in cars, things have gotten seriously out of proportion.

Ron Stegall,

Perry