Yes, you read that right. A California man reported that his pickup truck (with pet boxer Max inside) was stolen on February 20th. Charles McCowan went into a mini-mart, only to find his truck and dog gone when he came back out!
He called the police — that’s what you do when your car gets stolen, right? Officers found the pickup truck across the street in the parking lot of a fast food place. Max was inside, safe and sound. Nobody had a clue how the truck got across the street.
Let’s go to the tape! Security footage showed the truck rolling backward out of the mini-mart parking lot, across the street, and out of sight. Amazingly, the pickup truck threaded its way through traffic without causing an accident! The police concluded that Max the boxer must have knocked the truck out of park, allowing it to roll right out of the parking lot.
And I can believe it. I don’t remember where I was going, but I had my old dog Miko with me. Miko liked to ride in the front seat… sometimes. He was blundering his way from front seat to back seat when he knocked into the stick shift. It knocked the car out of drive and into neutral — for just a moment, before I realized what he’d done and got things back to normal again. Miko was a big dog, weighing in at around ninety pounds. Max, the pickup truck thief tips the scales at eighty pounds.
I don’t know if a little lap dog could have committed the crime! The moral of the story? License your dog… just not to drive (har har)!
But seriously. It can be dangerous for your dog to be alone in the car. Temperatures can quickly climb past one hundred degrees Fahrenheit on a warm, sunny day. If you must leave your pet unattended, make sure the windows are open and leave water for him to drink. And if you want to prevent your dog from “stealing” your car like Max did, you might want to put a gate or net up to keep your pup out of the front seat.