A recent incident with an overheated dog has the city's bylaw services staff emphasizing the importance of leaving four-legged friends at home while running summer errands.

Bylaw officers received a call on July 16 about a dog left in a vehicle in the Real Canadian Superstore parking lot without sufficient water or ventilation.

Upon arrival, bylaw officers found the animal to be in distress.

Using a device that measures temperatures inside vehicles, officers determined the temperature to be between 44 and 58 C, depending on the part of the car.

"The windows were just marginally — like maybe an inch — cracked in the back,” Dave Pruden, the manager of bylaw services, said in an interview this week.

Officers were able to track down the vehicle's owners, who said they had been in the store for about an hour.

The dog did not sustain any long-term damage and was not taken away by bylaw services.

Two people were charged with failing to provide an animal with adequate water (a $75 fine) and ventilation (a $200 fine). They are scheduled to appear in court next week.

"The fine is substantial,” Pruden said. "Of course, losing the pet is still more substantial in my eyes, but there's still a pretty substantial fine.

"We don't like charging people for things, but certainly when it comes to animals' health and safety, we won't hesitate to lay those charges.”

The incident is the first time bylaw has laid charges for failing to provide adequate water or ventilation in "quite some time,” Pruden said.

"We don't get an opportunity a lot of times to lay charges for people leaving their animals locked in a vehicle,” he explained. "A lot of times, what ends up happening is, by the time we get there, they're gone.”

That doesn't mean people leaving their animals in hot vehicles isn't a problem, however.

So far this summer, bylaw has received 10 to 20 calls about animals not having sufficient food or water, though Pruden notes some of the calls concerned residences, not vehicles.

Whenever possible, people should leave their animals at home, Pruden said.

"It's great to take them for a car ride and stuff,” he said. "But it doesn't take very long for the temperature in the vehicle to escalate, even with windows cracked open.

"We have to remember that animals are wearing a great big fur coat and they don't have the ability to sweat like we do.”

If an animal must be left in the vehicle, it needs to have lots of water and good air flow. Water not only helps the animal fight off dehydration, but helps to cool them down internally as well.

"A warm container of water is going to be better than the air inside,” Pruden said.

If possible, someone should stay in the vehicle to monitor the temperature as well.

"If it's getting too hot for them, I guarantee it's getting too hot for the dog,” Pruden said.