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Ontario SPCA
Tuesday, July 05, 2005
Brantford, ON – Despite the Ontario SPCA issuing two province-wide public heat alerts for pets since early June, a one-and-a-half-year-old dog named Jada died on Monday, June 27 after being trapped in a hot car while her owner attended the Brantford Charity Casino. The Ontario SPCA has charged Angelo Economopolous, 36, of London, Ontario with three counts of animal cruelty under the Criminal Code of Canada: failure to provide suitable and adequate care; wilfully causing unnecessary pain; and wilfully causing unnecessary suffering.The Ontario SPCA Brant County Branch received a call at 2 p.m. on June 27 from the casino’s Security Department indicating that a dog was trapped in a car in the casino parking lot. An Ontario SPCA Agent attended the scene and found that the dog had died just before she arrived. The dog had been left in a dark-coloured car with tinted windows – two of the windows were down just about one inch. The security officer managed to get into the small gap in one of the windows and pulled it outwards to make it wider. He was then able to unlock the car door and remove the dog. However, the dog was already in very serious condition. She was convulsing, her body was hot to the touch and her skin was covered in broken blood vessels. She died minutes after being removed from the car.
“Since dogs have only a limited ability to sweat, even a short time in a hot environment can be life-threatening,” says Ontario SPCA Inspector Jamie Frye. “Temperatures inside a parked car can rapidly reach dangerous levels even on relatively mild days, and even if the windows are slightly open. A dog’s normal body temperature is 39oC and a temperature of 41°C can be withstood only for a very short time before irreparable brain damage or death can occur.”
“It has been an extremely hot and humid beginning to the summer and this is the worst case scenario that we were advising the public to be cautious about avoiding,” says Frye.
Mr. Economopolous is scheduled for his first appearance in the Ontario Court of Justice, Brantford on July12, 2005 at 9 a.m. Court address: 44 Queen Street, Brantford, Court Room 1.
For media enquiries, please contact: Inspector Jamie Frye, Ontario SPCA Brant County Branch, (519) 756-6620, e-mail: inspector@brantfordspca.com
