Leaving your child/pet in the car "for a quick run inside"

I didn't ever leave my kids in the car that I recall. Definitely not to dash into a store or gas station and definitely not for a manicure. Maybe if I forgot something after I had them in their car seats before I left the house?

I don't leave my dog in the car mainly because he would have a shit fit if he saw me go in somewhere and wasn't with me. I don't see an issue with leaving a dog in a car if the temperature outside is 50 degrees or less and you are just going to be a few minutes. My mom and stepdad's dog loves to ride in the car. They used to have a farm and the dog went with them a lot to different places. So, since moving back to the city, they take her to the hardware store or wherever if the weather is cool. I'm waiting for the suburbanites to call the cops on them.

I left my dog in the car to drop a package inside the post office the other day. It was about 50 degrees out, clouds and I left the windows all half open (he’s big, no way to fit through). I was in and out in less than 2 min.

I would never ever leave him for the time it takes to get a manicure...

Our previous Chihuahua, Beans, loved to go for car/truck rides. (Zig the door was open, he hopped inside). We didn’t take him with us when we went shopping in the city but did take him along for trips to town when we were at the farm. Windows were open a bit & we were back & forth to check on him frequently. (Never when it was hot out though) He was perfectly happy in there & didn’t do the frenzied barking at the window when people walked by. DH often had Beans with him when he would drop me off at work or pick me up. Our current Chihuahua, Cooper, isn’t fond of car/truck rides so he stays back at the farm & doesn’t go for quick rides.

When my kids were little (30-40 years ago), I usually left them in the car while I paid for gas (I could see them & was about 15 ft away) but not for things like shopping. I certainly wouldn’t leave them while I got a manicure. (I had an age range of 12 years between my oldest & youngest so it wasn’t like I was leaving toddlers alone).

I think there needs to be some discretion applied. I wouldn’t leave kids or animals in a hot car for any period of time.

I just couldn't leave them in the car - to be fair, I had one baby at a time, I might have made a different decision if I had kids grouped together.

I have a cat so we don't take her anywhere except the vet, and that is a PROCESS.

I once left my kids in the car to go into a store on the base and pay for a bag of ice... I walked out to see a "concerned citizen" standing by the car, who proceeded to tell me he was tempted to call my husband's supervisor and have his rank stripped. My daughter was 15 at the time ( to be fair, she looked like she was 12), and my son was 7. His jaw dropped when I handed my daughter the keys, and told her she could drive home. She had recently gotten her permit. I was literally inside the store for 2 minutes. If they had been little kids, I maybe could have understood, but they weren't.

Oh, and about the rank thing? My husband was a reservist, (has since retired), and I can assure you they weren't going to strip his rank based on me leaving my kids in the car for 3 minutes to pay for ice.

I have called the police before once when I saw a baby in a car at Wal-Mart, car was parked out in lot, baby in car seat, windows cracked. It was about 80 degrees out. Police came, went into store and found mom, she had a full cart of groceries and was still shopping, she was arrested, dad came to pick baby up.

Husband took a call once for a man in a bar while his 2 kids who were both less than 3 years old were in car. He was also arrested, mom had to leave work from her overnight nursing shift at the hospital to come get them. She was PISSED, as my husband recounts the story.

My first 3 kids were all 5 years apart so there was always an older kid there & 20 -30 years ago, most people did it while paying for gas. With the grandkids, I don’t do it but my oldest grandson is now 14, taller than me & looks 16 so I doubt anyone would say anything. (I seldom take them anywhere by myself & if I did, they would probably prefer to come in with me anyway.

I often stay in the truck when DH stops for something quick.

My small city didn’t have pay at the pump option when Dd was a baby.
I never found it hard to haul Dd out and take her with me, but I only ever had one kid. Much easier for me than people with more kids.

I got scolded by an old man once, for leaving my dog alone. It was about 20C (68F) and cloudy, and all the windows were down a couple of inches. I went into a small grocers for milk or something. Wasn’t gone 10 minutes. Old dude said he was “keeping an eye on him” for me. Gee, thanks. I’m sure my German Shepherd appreciated the lookout.

The problem with this whole topic is that there aren’t hard and fast rules. Some ages of kids, some dogs, some temperatures are okay. Some are not. Some most(?) people agree on, like babies and toddlers alone is a bad situation, and kids or dogs alone in a car when it’s over 90F is bad, as is leaving your car running. But there are such huge grey areas.

On our base in Japan, they have codified exactly when you can leave a child of what age alone.  Like "must be 6 to be outside alone with frequent checks from parents... must be 14 to be alone overnight or 16 to be alone overnight supervising siblings".  I don't know the details but it was very specific.  And of course there were issues because some parents knew or thought they knew their kids were responsible and mature enough for some level of freedom that the rules didn't grant them.  And in many cases they were right.  But it did help (to some extent, at least, with issues like this.