SPCA exec's dog dies after being left in hot car

Published: August 26, 2009
A dog belonging to Robin Starr, chief executive officer of the Richmond SPCA, died last week after being left alone for about four hours in her car.
This morning, Starr and her husband, Ed, cried while recounting the story of what happened last Wednesday morning in an interview with the Richmond Times-Dispatch at the SPCA's offices.
Ed Starr said that last Wednesday, as his wife prepared for work, he put the couple's 16-year-old dog into her Volvo station wagon. She often took the dog -- a deaf and blind mutt named Louie -- to work with her, according to the couple. He was her favorite dog, she said.
Robin Starr arrived at work about 8 a.m. without realizing that the dog was in the car, they said. Ed Starr said he forgot to tell her Louie was in her car.
"I just forgot . . . and didn’t think about it until I got this frantic phone call from Robin. I knew immediately what I had done," he said today.
About noon, Robin Starr went to her car to go get lunch, and that's when she noticed Louie in the car. She took the dog inside to the SPCA clinic, then to an emergency veterinary clinic in Carytown. The dog died about midnight of kidney failure, the Starrs said.
“At 16, he just laid down where you put him and didn’t make a peep,” she said. “He never made a peep in the car; he’d just lay there in the back.”
According to the National Weather Service, last Wednesday's temperature in Richmond was 79 degrees at 8 a.m. and had reached 91 by noon.
Tamsen Kingry, the SPCA's chief operating officer, said this morning that "the SPCA board of directors does not waiver in its support" of Robin Starr. She has been CEO of the Richmond SPCA since 1997. Starr said she does not plan to resign.
Robin Starr has been an outspoken critic of Michael Vick and his role in a Virginia dogfighting operation, and of several local residents who were charged with animal neglect that led to animal deaths.
For more on this story, see tomorrow's Richmond Times-Dispatch.
-- Jeremy Slayton


http://www2.timesdispatch.com/rtd/news/local/article/SPCAGAT26_20090826-103602/288398/


http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32569213/ns/us_news-life/

 

:confused::confused::confused::confused::confused:
another victim of the spca!!!! sorry about thier loss but ....

 

Sorry I can't agree with this statement at all. Did you even read the article?

It sounds like a really unfortunate set of circumstances happened, her husband put her elderly and probably very quiet dog in the car and she did not know he was in the back seat until it was too late. That sounds horrible and traumatic both for the owner and the dog.

I'm not sure how you wouldn't notice your dog in the car, but I suppose we are all human and her husband made a big mistake by not telling her he loaded the dog up into her car.

Just because she works for the SPCA doesn't mean this dog is a "victim of the SPCA" - victims of Animal Rights are the dogs who are put down due to ridiculous discriminatory breed laws, not a dog that got left in the car of someone who also happens to work for the SPCA. The dog was a victim of sh*tty communication and a lack of watchfulness, not of the SPCA.

 

Baked that dog to death. Horrible.

 

I honestly don't even know how she "wouldn't know her dog was there" PATHETIC EXCUSE. Even a quiet dog makes noise, what kind of car was this, a limo, how would she not see her dog.

 

You know... people have done this with kids too. WTH

 

Yeah I cannot see how she would not notice the dog either. I just can't agree with calling this dog a "victim of the SPCA" - the dog was a victim of its owners' communication and care issues, the SPCA had nothing to do with this.

 

the SPCA kills innocent dogs everyday from worthless raids how could you even defend them!

This is a lame excuse to cover up the fact that they are incompetent pet owners. Yeah shit happens but I would never forget my dog or child (that is really sad) in a hot car. I know where my animals are at all times and I would not load one in the car and forget about them. what pieces of sh*t they are and I only feel sorry the dog.

 

It just goes to show everybody that even the folks who take a stand against something are still capable of (knowingly/unknowingly/intentionally/unintentionally or not) doing the very thing(s) they stand against; in this case, Animal Cruelty.

She and her husband are human beings. Now, I'm not making excuses, that poor dog didn't deserve to go out like that. But I'm not surprised at all, and not because I think of them as incompetent people. They're just people, and bad things happen when people "look up to them", know what I mean? SPCA leaders, Ingrid Newkirk of PeTA, the HSUS stormtroopers... They take a moral stance (however misguided/misinformed it might be) and unfortunately, people make them into demigods; make them out to be "perfect." And, when they f*ck up, even in a boneheaded way like this, it's like Zeus himself slipped on a banana peel and fell from Mt. Olympus, landing with a loud "Thud!"


It's sad, really. Even sadder for poor Louie.

If everybody looked at these folks and saw them for what they truly are, humans, just like the rest of us, I believe that everybody would be in a much better place to be able to think for themselves.

All this is just IMHO. It's a terrible tragedy what happened to that doggie.

 

And the article says her favorite dog that she often took to work. No word of her resignation though. Neglect is cruelty in the eyes of the law.

 

Let that bitch go down on neglect and cruelty charges! Burn her ass.....

 

Yup. They'd do it to one of us in a heartbeat. Yeah, they're people and sh!t happens, blah blah blah blah blah. Forgetting a dog or kid in the car is pure bullsh!t, plain and simple. Only an unfit parent would forget a kid in a car, and only an incompetent dog owner would forget a dog in a car.Who am I to judge? I am a good parent and a competent dog owner.

 

I agree they should be charged. i don't buy the fact she didn't know. How convenient.:rolleyes:

 

Do you think there will be any future pet ban enforced?

 

I'm not defending them, I am pointing out the obvious. If we claim this incident, where clearly owner neglect was the issue, is the SPCA's fault - we are not better than them claiming every pit bull owner is a monster.

The woman did not do anything to a shelter animal, this was her own personal pet - so this issue clearly lies with her own incompentance and neglect, not the organization as a whole.

Pointing out this painfully obvious fact should not make people freak out saying I'm "defending" the SPCA. I'm not doing that, what I am doing is saying we need to be smarter than them and not stoop to blanket statements that are clearly false.

Millions of dogs fall victim to the SPCA - dogs seized by unfair BSL laws, dogs put down due to breed alone, and other things. However, to claim this dog is a victim of the SPCA makes us look stupid and no better than the folks on the Dog Bite site who claim by posting here, we are dog fighters. This dog is a victim of a stupid owner, and it is horrible that the poor thing suffered so - but the SPCA had nothing to do with this. That would be like me saying the dogs who had to be put down from the Vick case are "victims of the NFL" just because Vick worked for the NFL - when in reality any dogs he culled were his own actions, not related to his job.

Do you see what I am saying here? I'm not defending the SPCA, I'm just trying to keep us rational and from stooping to the level of people who throw blanket statements at us. There are more than enough valid complaints to make about the SPCA, take this for what it is, an owner of an animal f*cking up big time. Complain about the SPCA when it relates to the SPCA - like when they raid breeders and kill tons of innocent dogs, they create enough victims that can be legitimately and honestly linked directly to the organization.

 

those spca a**holes are such great liars they probably made up the story about her husband putting the dog in the car w/o telling her. doesn't matter if he did or didn't tell her those creeps shouldn't be above the law. let me "forget" my dog in the car, which i wouldn't do b/c i'm not stupid, but they'd put me under the jail. it was neglect and at the very least the husband should be charged. where's those evil hsus and peta freaks now? they all make me sick.

 

I agree this issue should be thoroughly investigated and charges should be filed. They certainly would be filed against any non-SPCA worker on the street if this was their story for why the dog died in the car. They certainly should not be above the law just because of where they work.

 

Being as though she's the head honcho. She can't openly admit neglect so she asked hubby to take the blame...

 

yea its not like it just jumped up there while they were unloading food and didnt notice....the dog was old,deaf, and blind...it took alot of effort to get it in the car....but just like every other "well known" person....Im sure they will get off with some minuet charge and be right back in the face of someone else who does it tryn to put them in jail....:rolleyes:

 

My dog doesn't make any noise when I take it places.She lays in the back floorboard the whole trip.

And not seeing your dog in the car is very easy when you don't know it's in there.I don't look in my back seats unless I need something I put there.

However it is under idiotic circumstances.Why did the husband put the dog in the car and not tell his wife?While she took the dog with her to work alot generally it's the person that will be taking the dogs responsibility to put it in the car.

The only question I have is...Why were they keeping a deaf and blind dog alive.At that point the dog has nothing to live for.Sure it'll get a head scratch and a belly rub now and then but that's about it.I'd be terrified to live in a world that I had no clue what was going on around me.