Jason Minson, an Army veteran who runs a landscaping business, was out on a job in Norfolk, Virginia, on Tuesday when the first of several unusual things happened.
Minson was inspecting a tree in a yard when he heard a bang on the street.
When he went to check, he realized that a car driving by had bumped another car parked on the street. If that hadn’t happened, Minson probably never would have approached the parked car and discovered what was inside.
A black Labrador puppy was sprawled out on the floor of the vehicle — the noise and shudder seemed to have woken him up for a moment.
And he was incessantly panting.
“It was the kind of panting that was the last effort a dog does to try to cool himself off,” Minson told The Dodo.
Minson immediately called 911.
The police dispatched a unit to come help the dog — but they also informed Minson that breaking the window of the car to free the dog is a crime. (The law varies depending where you are.)
Minson watched the panting puppy from behind the pane of glass. He brought one bottle of water to the sliver of opened window and the dog jumped up on the seat and started drinking from it.
The dog went through the whole bottle. And then another.
“I’m usually a pretty cool, level-headed person but I was kind of fed up,” Minson said.
An animal control officer arrived and she started to try to pry the door open, but it wasn’t working. And nearly 20 minutes had passed since Minson had found the dog — and he was worried they were already out of time.
“The dog had laid back down on the floor of the car and wasn’t panting as quickly,” Minson said.
“I honestly didn’t think this pup was going to make it,” Minson wrote.
That’s when he took matters into his own hands.
“Charge me,” he can be heard saying in one of the videos he shot, “I don’t give a sh*t at this point.”
Using the baton from the animal control officer, Minson smashed the window and opened the door.
The animal control officer rushed the dog over to her van and took him to the vet for urgent care. And the owner of the dog was charged by the police. Minson received a call from the police, too — but to be a witness at the hearing about the incident.
The following day, Minson went to visit the pup at the facility where he’s recovering. Already, the dog seemed to be much stronger.
Minson, who has a Great Dane, hopes that if someone saw his dog in trouble in any way that they would do something about it.
“This is REAL talk people,” Minson wrote on Facebook after the dog was saved. “It’s hot out and if you leave an animal in your car [he’s] going to die from the heat … Take care of your fur babies.”
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