Walmart Runs Hot Car Warnings After PETA Campaign
For Immediate Release:
June 14, 2021
Contact:
Moira Colley 202-483-7382
More than 110 animals and children have been reported left unattended inside cars in Walmart parking lots on hot days in the last six years, and at least three dogs and two children have died. Now, after pleas from PETA, Walmart is running a public service announcement at least once every hour at stores nationwide reminding customers to look for “precious cargo” before leaving their vehicles. In thanks, PETA is sending the company’s local headquarters a box of delicious dog-shaped vegan chocolates.
“Every year, PETA receives dozens of reports of dogs and other animals who have baked to death after being left in a parked car,” says PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman. “Walmart will save lives by reminding shoppers never to leave a vulnerable family member in the car.”
PETA offers an emergency window-breaking hammer for intervening in life-or-death situations and urges people to report dogs locked in parked cars or left in backyards without access to shade or water to authorities at once. Dogs showing any symptoms of heatstroke—including restlessness, heavy panting, vomiting, or loss of coordination—should be taken into the shade, given water to drink, and cooled off with a cool towel placed on their head and chest. A veterinarian should be called immediately.
PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to abuse in any way”—opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview. For more information, please visit PETA.org or follow the group on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram.
