2 dogs die in hot car while owner was in dog training class

HIGH RIDGE, Mo. – Two dogs died in a hot car at a dog training centre near St. Louis as their owner attended a lecture on how to become a paid dog trainer, the centre’s owner said.

Tom Rose of the Tom Rose School told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that the deaths were the result of a “terrible accident.”

The owner left her car running, with the air-conditioner on high, while she was inside for the approximate 90-minute lecture on Wednesday, a day when the high temperature topped 90 degrees.

Rose said the car quit running without the owner knowing it. By the time she got outside the dogs — a Labrador retriever and a German shepherd — were dead.

Rose said the car may have run out of gas.

“It was just a terrible accident,” Rose said. “The owner of the dogs was incoherent. It’s a horrible thing, and she was so upset.”

Rose said police weren’t notified because “there was no negligence involved.”