A Mableton woman was recently arrested after police said she left her puppy sitting in a cage inside a minivan with a temperature averaging 123 degrees.
Endia Cox-Works told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution on Monday that she was inside Cumberland Mall grabbing food with her children for 15 minutes, longer than she thought.
“It was a mistake to leave the puppy in the car,” she said about 10-month-old Avery.
A Cobb County police report said an officer responded to a call of a dog in a car at 2 p.m. on June 11 in the mall’s food court parking lot.
The officer found the Chihuahua-terrier mix barking in a plastic cage that “appeared extremely unsteady on its feet” and panting heavily. The window was cracked four inches, but the cage was sitting in the passenger’s seat in direct sunlight, the report noted.