Don't just get mad... stop it ever happening again

I know some of you are impatient or in a rush - if you want  to order stickers/posters etc you can on the new website

but please do read on and keep coming back because this campaign is moving very quickly! New content added most days. 

Latest news:
It is probably time for you guys to move over to the fantastic new website created by our sticker designer @missyredboots Judith Broug. for the latest news & to learn what to do if you find a dog in distress. 

For one thing, I’m overseas at the moment and for some reason I can no longer alter this blog from Portugal... And another, we get much more space on the new website and gorgeous design!

Here is the link:
http://www.dogstodaymagazine.co.uk/dontcookyourdog/

Do please keep coming back to this blog though, now we’ve been introduced!

The latest endorsements...
Richard Allport, Vet 


 "I can still recall as a newly qualified vet seeing my first case of heat stroke in a dog that had been left in a car. The dog died, everyone involved was devastated, and yet several decades on these situations continue to occur. They are completely preventable, and as usual Dogs Today takes the lead in helping to stamp out these tragedies. Well done DT and I hope this campaign is 100% successful"
 
Peter Neville, Dog behaviourist... 

“This issue needs constant pressure to remind all owners and Dogs Today is the perfect voice to shout it loud, as ever. It's so easy to get caught out in British weather...what starts out as a cool day can suddenly turn fatal for a dog left in a car in the sun even with a window left a little open. But I think all owners need a sticker on the inside of the car where they can see it as they get out to remind them too, because I'm sure that only sadist would deliberately leave their dog to bake. All the terrible cases where dogs get so distressed or die seem to be due to negligence due to forgetfulness, or a momentary simple lack of forethought by otherwise good owners. They too need protection from their own failings... how terrible it must feel to live with the fact that one's own moment of negligence caused the death of one's own dog.

“I once acted as an expert witness in a case where a dog had apparently jumped into the back of his owner's car without him knowing. He went off to work and the dog baked to death, which he didn't find til he came back to his large estate car hours later. I found it hard to believe that a dog could jump in without the owner knowing, but as the case unfolded, the level of distress shown by the owner and descriptions of his dog's normally quiet behaviour were enough to convince the court, and also me, that this had indeed been a terrible accident. The dog of course, had still suffered horribly and died, and the owner still had to live the fact. Maybe a sticker on the inside and the outside might have prevented this tragedy too. Let's stick these things everywhere!!“

Allen Parton – Founder of Hounds for Heroes

"If there ever was a campaign that required every one in Dogdom to come together and act as one than this ‘Don't Cook Your Dog’ campaign has to be it.
“Together we can prevent further suffering  of our faithful canine chums, by preventing mindless and thoughtless acts occurring. Shoulder to shoulder, we must all stand together to make a difference and prevent such needless suffering."

 David the Dogman Canine Behaviourist Spain

"If you cannot stand the heat, neither can your pet. THINK!
I am delighted to  be associated with Dogs Today campaign. "

chef Antony Worrall Thompson:

"As patron of a dog rescue charity, it's a subject that’s very close to my heart.  I’m pleased to be able to offer my support to the Dogs Today ‘Don’t Cook Your Dog’ campaign.  Every year in the UK, too many dogs die in hot cars – and as owners we must take responsibility.  We all know dogs should never be left alone in cars, let alone hot cars, so let’s put a stop to this now. If you’re planning a day out with your dog, think carefully about what you are going to do when you arrive, and if it’s not dog friendly, it’s a no go with your four legged friend".


The most productie 24 hours in recent memory....


Last night we needed to raise the substantial funds for a 100,000 sticker reprint to hit the exciting supermarket distribution deadline - not an easy thing made slightly more complex by me being on a family holiday in Portugal! It was as amazing as it was inspiring the reaction this 11th hour appeal got. 


Here are the heroes who said yes and not just yes, but a VERY, VERY quick yes! This has them in chronological order, 
some folks either working very late or very early!


Kennel Club
Dogs Trust
Mutley and Mog online retailers
RSPCA
National Animal Welfare Trust


Isn't it fantastic that we are able to get the stickers into the hands of normal shoppers - the very people who may not yet have heard of this campaign.


Well done too that very large PR company working for free that got the  supermarket deal and Judith Broug for the quick redesign to incorporate the new list of supporters. And just well done everyone for helping and for my family for putting up with me working on holiday!


Yesterday's highlights:
We liked seeing a photo of the poster up in Blue Cross Victoria Hospital (do send us more!):



The wonderful Jilly Cooper endorsed our campaign:

“Dogs Today is, as usual, fighting for a better life for dogs. Surely nothing could be worse for a dog than to be trapped in a virtual oven - it would literally boil.   I’m delighted to lend my support to the Don’t Cook your Dog campaign – it’s something that has always upset me, even as a child I remember worrying about dogs left alone in cars in the summer. I believe offenders should be dealt with most severely to reflect the seriousness of the crime.” Jilly Cooper.


More campaign endorsements coming very soon and a new website on the way thanks to our ace sticker designer @missyredboots (Judith Broug) 
... this is really moving so incredibly fast thanks to a team of fantastic people!


And...
The first 50,000 stickers have landed! And we already need to order 100,000 more!


URGENT


The vast majority of the 100,000 stickers will be distributed free of charge by a VERY major national supermarket chain (identity embargoed!) who has agreed to support the campaign in 314 stores. 


It is a massive opportunity to reach the general public in a totally new way and we need to press print in the next 24 hours to meet the supermarket's launch deadline. Would your company like to be associated with this hugely significant campaign? Would be fantastic to show altruism and unity in response to this issue. 


 Two huge things happened yesterday - as hinted above a VERY major retailer came on board and a Celeb chef, too! Both still embargoed, but thrilling times indeed! Thank you very much major altruistic PR company working Pro-Bono for negotiating both of these two significant breakthroughs!

Newish: Our brilliant viral commercial produced by actor and dog lover Simon John-Gibbons - @syjohngibbons on Twitter

Still pretty new...Campaign merchandise!
(Why not become a moving poster while you shop with this bag? 
Click here to go to the merchandise shop - for free stickers and posters they're still on the usual link click here )

Other of today's highlights...
Wood Green, Blue Cross and the Kennel Club join the campaign
 and some hints from the Puppy Whisperer book...

You must have heard about two police dogs who died in a car last Sunday morning. It has made many dog lovers livid. The fact that another dog in this same man's care had apparently died the same terrible way a few years ago has made normally law abiding dog owners incandescent with rage.

That morning on Twitter we were all sharing our feelings of despair and disgust about how lessons have still not been learned. That some people still imagine that cranking the window down an inch will somehow prevent these atrocities.

How do you get the message over that it is NEVER acceptable to leave your dog in a car on a warm day?

And then there was a flash of inspiration. Many years ago the RSPCA did a demo of how hot a Volvo estate gets even with the tailgate up and all the windows down. They proved that within a very short period a dog actually starts cooking. And this led to the idea that a TV chef would really help get this terrible message across to people.

Maybe repeat the RSPCA experiment with a chunk of raw meat and see how long before it starts to cook and put a timeline on it.

It amazes me how many people still risk leaving their dogs in the car and think a window down will stop it happening.

Here's some helpful hints highlighted to us by one of our valued campaign supporters:

"If the temperature is 85 degrees Fahrenheit (30 degrees Celsius) outside on a hot summer days, the inside of the car can reach 120 degrees Fahrenheit (49 degrees Celsius)within half an hour. Your puppy can suffer brain damage or death if her body temperature reaches 107 degrees Fahrenheit, which is only 5 to 7 degrees above normal body temperature. (A dog’s normal temperature ranges between 100 and 102.5 degrees Fahrenheit (37.7 - 39.1 degrees Celsius).”

·         Always carry water with you

·         If it’s 85 degrees Fahrenheit (30 degrees Celsius) or warmer, no walking between 11am and 5pm

·         In temperatures above 75 degrees Fahrenheit (24 degrees Celsius), walks should be of a short duration and in shade

·         If the pavement is too hot for your bare feet, then it is too hot for your puppy’s paws”

Both extracts from Paul Owens and Terence Cranendonk, The Puppy Whisperer, 

The RSPCA gave their support for this campaign on day one. And we've just received this lovely email from Dogs Trust chief executive Clarissa Baldwin:

"It is unacceptable that every summer we are made aware of dogs that have experienced the most excruciating deaths by being left in hot cars. I share our supporters' distress and anger every time I hear of a dog who has suffered so unnecessarily. Despite repeated warnings, public outrage and very high profile media cases - the message clearly isn't getting through to all dog owners. 
"Sometimes people need to be jolted into action and we're hopeful that Dogs Today's 'Don't cook your dog' campaign will force owners to view their cars as potential ovens on hot days. Temperatures can reach over 40 degrees in a car and this extreme heat can kill a dog within just twenty minutes. We need people to realise that opening a window a couple of inches is not an acceptable measure to protect a dog. Lets hope dog lovers join Dogs Trust in supporting the campaign so this time next year we're not faced with more tragic deaths of 'cooked dogs'."
In addition the Digi Team are going to get active.
Please could we have 500 car stickers to start with (if too many then cut me down.)
Good luck with the campaign.
Best wishes
Clarissa
Clarissa Baldwin OBE
Dogs Trust - A Dog Is For Life

Chief Executive of Wood Green, Dennis Baker OBE said:

“Wood Green, The Animals Charity fully supports the ‘Don’t Cook Your Dog Campaign’ as well as its parallel campaign ‘Dogs Die in Hot Cars’.
During the warmer months a dog can die in a hot car in less than 20 minutes. We would remind people that under the Animal Welfare Act, pet owners have a legal duty to care for their animal and if they put their animal at risk, they could face prosecution.
Please be responsible pet owners this summer and leave your pets at home with a frozen Kong!"

Mark Bossley, chief vet at The Blue Cross said: 

"The Blue Cross warns dog owners every year about the dangers of leaving their pet in a car on warm days, yet tragic incidents continue to happen. Cars act like greenhouses so the heat builds up very quickly and dogs begin to suffer within minutes. Vets see cases of pets with heat exhaustion far too often and we strongly support the 'Don't Cook Your Dog' campaign. Animals can struggle terribly in the heat so avoid taking dogs on long walks and never leave them in the car, even if you have the windows open. If you see a dog left in a car on a hot day and cannot locate their owner, seek advice from the police." 

And just in from the Kennel Club:

"The Kennel Club welcomes the ‘Don’t Cook Your Dog’ campaign and is very pleased to support it.  Despite ongoing educational campaigns from many dog related bodies – including the Kennel Club – some owners still believe that their dog is safe left in the car with a few inches of window open and a bowl of water.  Owners need to be extra vigilant when travelling with their dogs even in warm weather as it doesn’t have to be particularly hot for dogs to suffer from heatstroke in a vehicle.  We sincerely hope that by everyone lending their support to one campaign we can put a stop to the tragic cases of dogs dying in hot cars that we hear of every year."

Yes - it does keeps happening doesn't it. We've just heard that another dog has died - how many die without it ever getting into the press? Here is an extract from the story published by This is Wiltshire.

In Chippenham a Yorkshire Terrier was left in a Ford Mondeo parked in the Iceland car park on Saturday afternoon. An employee at a local shop, who didn’t want to be named, said: “A passer by went over and put his hand through the window to open the door but it was too late by then.
“The car had been parked for about an hour and 20 minutes from about 3pm.”
Police were called and spoke to the owner, who lives in the Nursteed area of Devizes.
An RSPCA spokeswoman said: “All too often, owners make the mistake of thinking that it is sufficient to leave a bowl of water or a window open for their pet but this is not enough to protect your pet from heatstroke.
“Our message is: Dogs die in hot cars. Don’t leave your dog alone in a car.”

It's a terrible way to die. Let's stop it happening. I think cases are usually under-reported - we normally only hear if it's a policeman involved. It's only since awareness has been raised that recent cases have been hitting the nationals? Only today we hear that a staggering 500 children have died in hot cars! How rarely has that been reported? Click here to see the full story.

I am indebted to Kate Price, owner of the famous Olive the Pug,  for undertaking this experiment. 

Sunday 3rd July 11.15 am. Car in sun front two windows open 

 

Outside temp in sun 29 degrees centigrade at 11.15am

11.20am in car,  front two windows open 31 degrees c

11.25 am two front windows open 35 degrees C

11.30am. Two front windows open 40 degrees C

Shut car windows for 5 mins 11.35am 45 degrees C

Now opened all 4 windows to typical height

Four windows open, 11.40am......42 degrees C

On back shelf of car in direct sun, all four windows open. 

It only took a few mins to reach over 50 degrees Centigrade.

Cars are ovens. 

On Victoria Stilwell's facebook page someone talking about our campaign mentioned that their kids have baked cookies on the dashboard... says it all really.

Please be careful on hot days generally...

And it's not just cars that are death traps in hot weather, news just in of a Golden Retriever tragedy: ‎"It was 4pm, so absolutely not the hottest part of the day - prob about 25 C - but humid. Ruby was only in the wheat field a short time hunting but came out panting very heavily and plonked herself down on the grass in the shade. Owner put her on the lead to walk her back and she collapsed. Rushed to the vet who dx'd heat stroke. She came home the next day but was very poorly. Brightened a little after two days then took turn for the worse and had to be PTS."  Please be very careful exercising dogs on hot days, especially dogs with high prey drives who may push themselves too far. The owners of Ruby are totally devastated but still wanted their story told to hopefully prevent other deaths.

Here's the sticker we've produced, thank you so much to @missyredboots Judith Broug for all her hard work designing this so quickly and putting up with my million or so changes of wording.

We are having this sticker printed and the August edition of Dogs Today (out second Thursday in July) will have a coupon showing how to order them and in the September magazine we hope to have the actual stickers inserted free of charge for all our UK readers. (Please scroll down for how to order these stickers now and for how to get an A3 poster or an instant downloadable one...)

The campaign has really taken off with versions being adapted for many different countries too! We are delighted to announce that one of Britian's biggest PR agencies has agreed to work on the campaign pro bono (or maybe Pro Bonio!). One of the early ideas is for a doggie happening in London next week to launch the sticker campaign. A doggie flash mob? Would you  take part? Any other bright ideas very clever doggie folk? Anyone able to get a TV chef on board with this campaign? Thank you so much for Stephen Fry for joining in the campaign with a spectacular retweet.

HOW TO ORDER CAR STICKERS: 

You can click here 

Stickers and posters are free, we only ask for p and p which you can now pay by worldpay. 

We can take orders for UK, Europe and non EU overseas from 1 to 500 stickers*. 
Please note that the first price bracket is £5 for up to 15 stickers. It's uneconomic to take a credit card booking for less than this amount and it cost more than £1,500 to bring thestickers to this country so please note this is just a contribution to their transit cost. If you only want one sticker please just send us a large SAE and we'll post you one - but why not take the 15 and give them to friends and family!

The first 1,000 people in the UK who order stickers 

will also be sent a FREE copy of our magazine as a thank you! 

(Wish we could afford to post freebies overseas but if you'd like to see a copy and follow news of the campaign for only 59p you can get an iPad edition from the App store or from Pocketmags if you want online  but don't have an iPad etc)

(*Stickers have now arrived! We have used the biggest printers possible to get the best price to enable us to be able to absorb the cost of production, but we are only little and we do need to charge for postage and packing. ) 

If ordering from outside the UK:

If you'd like to print your own in bulk and want us to change the wording to a different language contact Rachael@dogstodaymagazine.co.uk - we want this campaign to go international, we want this to help as many dogs as possible.

Please order or download your free posters now!
Click here

While we wait for actual stickers to be delivered we have lovely A3 posters we can send you or an A4 poster you can download at home and print out. It would be fantastic if you can get these up in pet shops, vets, groomers, libraries, supermarkets etc. 

If you can't download from the click here button for any reason email: "poster" to rachael@dogstodaymagazine.co.uk and she'll send you a pdf!
(Some inventive people are laminating them and using them as temporary car stickers!)

Our A3 printed posters have now arrived!

We send you 10  in an A3 posting tube. Again buy via this link Click here or phone during office hours to use a card 01276 858880 for any of the items.

 How to get even more involved:

Even though the office is only manned Mon-Friday, 9am till 5.30pm you will find me and others from the campaign on twitter and facebook outside these hours!

Do please join us there as there is so much you can do RTing the message of the day or sharing this link on your facebook account.

Do say hello on Twitter @beverleycuddy and on facebook - just go to the Dogs Today magazine page. (There's a panel to the right you can just click on to go there!) 

It's wonderful to see how many of you have already put your posters up and are spreading the word. Please do email me photos of stickers in cars and posters you have put up - we'll be putting some of these in the next issue of the magazine. (My email is beverley@dogstodaymagazine.co.uk)

 How to get the Blog and Website Button

Could you link to this page from your website to show you support the campaign? We now have a button - either Click here or email rachael@dogstodaymagazine.co.uk if you'd like to be sent the gif and the weblink address - put "button" in the subject please!

Or if you prefer not to order online or want more than 1,000 car stickers scroll down to the very end, but don't miss anything! Keep reading...


Media coverage so far:

I was on ITV Daybreak's sofa last Wednesday talking about this issue hopefully puncturing the myth that dropping your window while you nip to the shops would save your dogs life.  Here's the clip from Wednesday's ITV Daybreak if you missed it.

Also - before you go please do check out this link... we are desperate to find a London foster home for Rosie - do click to read more - her homeless OAP owner was sleeping in her car with her dogs as she didn't want to give them up - the council halfway house wasn't dog friendly. You'll also get a heartwarming yet sad update about Milo the other foster dog... and just generally if you love dogs, just give it a read - you may know someone who is dog-less for eth summer who could be a foster mum or dad!




Thank you to Karen Wild for recording this and putting it on You Tube, really helpful!

If you want just one sticker you can send us

****an A5-size or bigger stamped self addressed envelope to:*****

"Send me a Sticker", 

Dogs Today, 4 Bonseys Lane, Chobham, Surrey, GU24 8JJ. 

If you don't want to order on line

If you would like us to post you a sticker or stickers but don't want to order online (even though the bank costs are cheaper for us and we don't have to re-key your address and you get a free magazine if you're the first 1,000 to order) you can either phone us in office hours 01276 858880 or:

Please send a cheque 

payable to Dogs Today for £5 to cover postage and packing for anything up to 15 stickers

If you want between 16 and 50 stickers please send a cheque for £10
If you want between 51 and 500 stickers please send a cheque for £15
If you want between 501 and 1,000 stickers please send a cheque for £20 

If you are interested in bulk distribution ie more than 1,000 stickers - perhaps you are a retailer, petfood manufacturer or a charity for example or you have another amazing idea... please contact beverley@dogstodaymagazine.co.uk and put "Bulk distribution" in the subject line.

Include your name, address and a daytime telephone number and state clearly how many stickers you would like and either a SAE or a cheque for the postage or phone us 01276 858880 during office hours.

"Send me a Sticker", 

Dogs Today, 4 Bonseys Lane, Chobham, Surrey, GU24 8JJ.