Doggie Donuts: Yet Another Reason Not to Leave Your Pet Alone in Your Car

It’s never, ever, EVER a good idea to leave your dog alone in your car, whether it’s hot, cold or somewhere in between. Even on a relatively mild, 80-degree day, the temperature inside your vehicle can rise to over 100 degrees within just 10 minutes. Yikes.

And speaking of yikes, this week a big black dog named Max demonstrated yet another reason why you shouldn’t leave your dog alone in your car—even for a minute or two.

Max’s owner made a wrong turn on a cul-de-sac Thursday morning in Port St. Lucie, Fla. He apparently saw something on the street and got out of the car to investigate. Unfortunately, he left the motor running and closed the door. The door automatically locked.

Max probably freaked out a little. He stepped on the gear shift, putting the car in reverse. The sedan, with Max locked inside, began doing donuts…for nearly half an hour.

Anna Sobel, who lives across from the cul-de-sac, looked out her window when her three dogs began barking. “I saw the car going backwards in a circle,” she told the South Florida Sun Sentinel. “There was a dog in there the whole time. … It was turning and turning and turning in a perfect circle.”

Max’s owner had another car key, but its battery was dead.

At one point the sedan stopped circling and went backward up a lawn, hitting a mailbox and some garbage cans. With the car stopped, officers from the Port St. Lucie Police Department were able to unlock the door by entering the code on the door’s keypad.

I have to admit the video taken by Sabol on her cell phone made me laugh until I cried. Fortunately, nobody was hurt, although the sedan had some minor damage. A tragedy to truly cry over was thankfully avoided.

“They should give that dog a [driver’s] license,” Sabol told the Sun-Sentinel. “He drives better than some people I’ve seen on the roads here.”

Photo: WPBF 25 News/Facebook