Burnsville Police Cite Man for Leaving Dog in Hot Car

A Shakopee man has been cited for leaving an unattended dog in a hot car in front of a Burnsville business.

Scott Campbell Rettke, 40, was charged with a petty misdemeanor after police say his dog – a 12-pound Italian greyhound – was left in the car for more than a half-hour.

According to the Burnsville police report, someone called 911 to report the dog in the car, which was parked in direct sunlight. When police arrived almost a half-hour later, the outside temperature was 87 degrees.

The front windows on the car were rolled down about 2 inches, according to the police report. The officer said he reached inside the car window and found that the car’s interior temperature was “considerably hotter” than outside.

The dog inside the car was panting heavily, the officer reported. He said there was no way to tell how long the dog had been in the car before the 911 call.

The officer had Rettke, the car’s owner, paged inside the business to get him to come outside, according to the report.

When Rettke responded to the page and came outside, he “didn’t think it was an issue and was laughing that I would give him a ticket” for the violation, the officer said in the report.

Rettke was cited and fined $105.