Countless dogs die every year after their owners leave them in parked cars for long or short periods of time, thinking their dog is safe but not realising the dangers animals face in this situation. Leaving your dog in a parked car even for a short period of time can prove fatal.

The temperature inside the car might not seem excessive when you first stop but the temperature inside a stationary car can rapidly increase to double the outside temperature. This can happen very quickly, within six to ten minutes.

The inside of a parked car will soon become far hotter than the outside temperature simply because a car traps the heat from the sun just like a greenhouse. This is why warm temperatures outside can quickly become deadly temperatures inside a stationary car. Even on comparatively cool days a car's internal temperature can rocket and keeping the windows open a crack hardly slows the rise at all.

Add to this the fact that your dog has on a fur coat that is designed to trap heat, and you can really begin to see why leaving dogs in parked cars can be so fatal. Also, they cannot sweat to cool down and have to rely on panting to regulate their body temperature.

The advice can only be this - never leave your dog in a parked car on a warm day, even for a few minutes. Leaving the window open a few inches, parking in the shade, or even leaving the dog a bowl of water is NOT adequate. A dog left in a car on a hot or even warm day can suffer heat stress and ultimately fatal heat stroke within just 10 minutes.