This photo was shared to a 100 Mile House Facebook page and had over 100 comments before the administrator turned commenting off.

Image Credit: SUBMITTED / Korey Everett

With the cold snap hitting many B.C. towns and cities, folks know to bundle up and try to avoid the frigid air.

That’s why one man in 100 Mile House was shocked when he saw a dog sitting in the back of a pickup truck in temperatures dipping to around - 35 C on Jan. 13.

Korey Everett was sitting down to lunch with his wife when they first spotted the dog riding unsecured in the bed of the truck.

“I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw the dog in the back of the truck because I would never do that to my own dogs,” Everett says. “With the wind chill, it must have been - 50 or - 60 in the back of that truck.”

He snapped a quick photo and called the RCMP, who said they couldn’t do anything without a license plate number. Everett posted the photo to a local Facebook group while eating his meal, and others quickly chimed in that they too had spotted the truck.

“There were a few other people who had also seen it driving through town so we quickly ate lunch and drove around town for five to ten minutes before we found it,” Everett says. “He was parked out there and he was away from his truck. It was actually started and keeping warm for when he got back.”

Everett and his wife found the dog waiting in the truck bed in a grocery store parking lot. By the time the owner returned about ten minutes later, a few other people had gathered around out of concern for the dog.

“I waited and a few other people that were in the parking lot came over and had my back. I waited until he came out and I confronted him, I wasn’t rude about it, I wasn’t upset. I just told him how it was and that it was too cold to have a dog on the truck bed,” Everett says.

Although the group was concerned, the dog was excited to see his person approaching.

“It didn’t seem too bad in the back of the truck, though his eyes and his nose had frost on it. He wasn’t shaking or anything and I don’t believe that the dog wasn’t loved, because he was pretty happy to see the owner come to the truck.”

Everett says the owner kept relatively quiet and put his dog in the cab of the vehicle. Everett is unsure if the owner understood the concern from those around him, and noted he didn’t give much of an apology.

More upsetting than the dog in the truck bed was the lack of assistance, Everett says.

“I contacted (the RCMP) at lunch and they told me I needed a license plate for them to do something and I contacted them again from the Save-on-Foods parking lot and they told me there was nothing they could do and to call SPCA, but we don’t even have an SPCA here in 100 Mile House,” Everett says.

The 100 Mile House SPCA has no brick and mortar location, and Everett and the other onlookers were left frustrated with the lack of help. They hope the man now understands the severity of his actions.

Last fall, a German Shepherd puppy had its leg amputated due to extensive injuries after falling from a truck bed in Williams Lake.

Under Section 72 of the B.C. Motor Vehicle Act and Section 9.3 of the B.C. Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act, it’s illegal to drive with an unsecured pet in the bed of a pickup truck. Pets should ride in the cab of the car, and if that’s not possible and they must ride in the back of the truck, they should be secured in a crate in the middle of the truck bed.

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