What to do if you see a pet or child in a hot vehicle

Know the law before you break the window.

Between April 1 and June 12, the La Crosse County animal control received 60 calls for pets locked in hot vehicles.

Before you go breaking the window to save the pet or child, La Crosse police sergeant Tom Walsh explains the Wisconsin law that allows that to happen without civil liability.

“First, and most importantly, check to see if the doors are locked,” Walsh said. “Secondly, look to see if there’s an adult who would be responsible for the child or the pet nearby.”

If no progress is made to find the owner or someone to open the car, “at that point you call 911,” Walsh continued. “Inform the dispatch center of what you’re going to do and then go ahead and break the window on the vehicle.”

After that, you will be asked to stick around to be interviewed as part of the investigation.

With the summer weather well upon us now, heat inside a car can increase by 15 degrees every 10 minutes.

“The weather starts getting nicer out and people want to take their pets with them, but they just don’t realize how dangerously hot it gets inside of those cars,” Kathy Kasakaitis, the animal control supervisor, said.