{"id":1312246,"date":"2019-07-09T20:36:00","date_gmt":"2019-07-10T02:36:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.postindependent.com\/after-recent-dog-death-rifle-officer-urges-people-to-leave-pets-at-home-not-in-cars\/"},"modified":"2019-07-09T20:36:00","modified_gmt":"2019-07-10T02:36:00","slug":"after-recent-dog-death-rifle-officer-urges-people-to-leave-pets-at-home-not-in-cars","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/local-news\/after-recent-dog-death-rifle-officer-urges-people-to-leave-pets-at-home-not-in-cars\/","title":{"rendered":"After recent dog death, Rifle officer urges people to leave pets at home, not in cars"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
Signs on Third Street in downtown Rifle remind people of the dangers of leaving dogs in parked vehicles during the summe in Western Colorado.<\/strong>
Kyle Mills \/ Post Independent<\/em><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

For Rifle Police Officer Dawn Neely, who handles animal control for the department, checking the animal logs for any new reports is a daily ritual.<\/p>\n

After police received a 911 call recently from a sobbing individual reporting a dog was locked in a vehicle and it was deceased, an officer responded and tried to assist. But it was already to late.<\/p>\n

Neely, who was off duty at the time of the incident, said upon reading the report it really got to her, so she turned to the Rifle Police Department Facebook page<\/a> to educate the community.<\/p>\n

She thought maybe giving a little more information on the story would get to other people and motivate them to share with others.<\/p>\n

As of Tuesday, the post had more than 500 comments and 4,000 shares.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe whole reason I released that much information was really to get the point across,\u201d Neely said. \u201cI didn\u2019t realize it would quite get to this level.\u201d<\/p>\n

Besides what Officer Neely wrote on the Thursday, July 4, post, she cannot comment any further on the incident that occurred because it is an open active case that Rifle Police Department is still investigating.<\/p>\n

As of Tuesday, not arrests had been made.<\/p>\n

EDUCATION<\/p>\n

Officer Neely said she responds to 40-45 calls on average every summer of animals left in vehicles.<\/p>\n

With more than six years experience, Neely, who worked as a veterinarian\u2019s technician, said she knows what to look for.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou always want to look at the whole picture,\u201d she said. \u201cWe have to look at the full information, what is the outside temperature, what is the inside temperature if we can get it, and what is the dog doing.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s really what the dog is doing that\u2019s going to give us the clearer picture of whether that animal is in distress or not,\u201d Neely said.<\/p>\n

She said it\u2019s a combination of contributing factors that make leaving your animal in a parked car dangerous.<\/p>\n

She said you have to look at temperature and humidity, plus the age and condition of the animal. A mature adult dog has more tolerance for high heat and different conditions than a really young or old animal, or especially a sick animal, Neely said.<\/p>\n

\u201cBased on my training and experience, if I feel like a dog is in immanent danger I have to remove that dog. But it has to meet that standard before I can do anything,\u201d she said. \u201cThe message I would like to get across is to leave your dog safely at home.\u201d<\/p>\n

Neely reiterated that if people see a pet in a car and it\u2019s on a hot day, anything over 70 degrees, they should call their local authorities.<\/p>\n

Officer Neely said the second thing she wants people to take note of is the license plate, make, model and color of car for identification reasons. If they can, the reporting party should stay on scene; or, if there is more than one person on scene, go to the nearest business and have the car owner paged.<\/p>\n

Officer Neely had an incident recently at the Rifle Library when an individual became upset when told his dog was in danger, and didn\u2019t believe her until he witnessed the officer using a laser thermometer on the interior of the vehicle.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe had his windows rolled down and was parked mostly in the shade, when I arrived on scene,\u201d she said. \u201cIt was 85 degrees outside, and when I pointed it around to the shaded parts of the vehicle it was 101.4,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

After making contact with the owner and removing the dog from the vehicle, she checked the interior temperature again and it had risen to 105.9 degrees.<\/p>\n

\u201cYour dog likes to go when you\u2019re going on an air-conditioned car ride, or when you\u2019re going to the river or on a hike,\u201d Neely said. \u201cYour dog does not like to be left in 105.9 degrees for however long \u2014 that\u2019s not what your dog signed up for.<\/p>\n

\u201cYour dog wants to go for the fun, comfortable things, it doesn\u2019t want to be cooked \u2014 have a better plan.\u201d<\/p>\n

kmills@postindependent.com<\/a><\/p>\n

via:: Post Independent<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Signs on Third Street in downtown Rifle remind people of the dangers of leaving dogs in parked vehicles during the summe in Western Colorado.Kyle Mills \/ Post Independent For Rifle Police Officer Dawn Neely, who handles animal control for the department, checking the animal logs for any new reports is a daily ritual. After police […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[160],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1312246","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-20 10:12:55","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSKE Ski Country","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1312246","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1312246"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1312246\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1312246"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1312246"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1312246"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}