BREWER, Maine — A Brewer police official is recommending dog owners not bring their pets along on rides on hot days unless necessary. He also is asking dog lovers not to take matters into their own hands if they should encounter dogs in vehicles they believe are in distress.
That apparently is what led to a strained situation early Wednesday afternoon at the Lowe’s store on outer Wilson Street.
Deputy Chief Chris Martin of the Brewer Police Department said Wednesday that police were called to Lowe’s about 12:30 p.m. for a report that puppies were left in a pickup truck in the store’s parking lot.
“The windows were cracked, but [someone] thought it was too hot for them,” Martin said.
He said that store employees attempted to page the truck’s owner without success.
The vehicle at issue was described as a black and white Dodge Dakota pickup parked behind the store. Police officers who went to the store, however, left after finding no vehicle matching that description.
Officers were called back to the store 10 minutes later after the owner of a black and maroon pickup called to report his back window had been smashed out.
“The back window had been smashed out by an unknown person to, what we surmise, was to get the dogs released,” he said.
Officers looked the dogs over and determined that they did not look distressed and that there was water in the vehicle.
He said that in the meantime, the puppies were taken into the air-conditioned store.
“It’s hard to say how much distress they were in initially,” Martin said. “It appears as though someone was worried about the health and the welfare of the dogs and that’s why they [broke into the pickup].”
After looking the dogs over and determining they were none the worse for wear, police returned the puppies to the couple, whom Martin did not identify. He said the two are from Maine but not from the immediate area.
As of Wednesday, no charges had been filed in connection with the incident, Martin said.
“We’re happy that the dogs are OK. We would just need more information to determine what, if any, violation of law existed. We’d really have to go back and look at the situation in that moment of time,” he said.
With regard to state law regarding animals left in hot vehicles, Martin said, “This is where you have to tread carefully. Obviously if you have a living being — a person, a child, a dog — and they’re in distress and their health and well being is in jeopardy, you would think that people would be able to do things that help them out.”
But if the situation turns out not to be life-threatening, a well-intentioned act could become a crime.
“My recommendation in these cases is to wait for the police. Wait for us to get there and make the determination because we would know what’s within the parameters of the law and what isn’t,” he said.
“We may have to take a window out to help a [person or animal] that’s in distress,” he said. “We may have enough time to try track down the owner. We may think we have enough time to call in a towing company to come unlock the vehicle. There’s a whole bunch of options available to us” as police, he said.