Windscreen fitting company in Cornwall has special offer for anyone who smashes window to save pet – Cornwall Live

A Cornish windscreen fitting company has reiterated their generous offer for anyone who finds themselves having to repair a window they smashed to save an animal, following an incident in St Ives last month.

Cornwall Windscreens, a mobile service which operates all across the duchy, is offering cost price replacement glass to anyone in the "unlikely position" of having to pay for window repairs because they rescued an overheating animal from a car.

They also promise to double to price for any owner who has to pay for the damage, with profits going to animal charities.

The company has been offering this service for years and has enjoyed positive feedback, but they got in contact with Cornwall Live after we posted a video of a man smashing the window of a parked car to rescue a dog that he felt was 'dying' in the heat.

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Clive Oxley, who runs a property maintenance business in St Ives, was buying lunch in the town when a friend said he saw a dog locked in a 4x4 in a nearby car park.

Clive Oxley recorded this footage as he saved the springer spaniel.

Clive rushed to the car park behind the launderette and called police who told him not to do anything unless the dog was distressed. But, seeing the pooch on lying on its back with its legs in the air and its tongue hanging out, Clive felt it was struggling to breathe and he had to do something.

He smashed the car window and rescued the springer spaniel, filming the immediate aftermath on his mobile phone.

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He then gave the springer spaniel some water before its owner returned. "You couldn't even touch the roof of the car, it was flipping boiling," he told Cornwall Live.

"The woman came back and started screaming at me. She said she'd just been to Pizza Express. By the time she got there the police were there too.

Cornwall Windscreens hope their offer will urge more people to make efforts to save a life.

Natasha Tozer-Martin, of Cornwall Windscreens, heard about Clive's actions and praised them.

The company, which she runs with her husband, brought in the aforementioned service years ago when they noticed the problem happening more and more.

She said: "There is a distinct increase of dogs being left in cars to suffer. People are becoming more aware that this is not right, but regardless there are still cases of criminal damage - all because people have saved the lives of animals, in most cases.

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"Every year we offer this service for anyone who finds themselves in this trouble and people have been very grateful. We're only a husband and wife team, if national companies started doing this it would be great - a lot more lives could be saved."

She added that dog bans and the price of kennels have contributed to this problem, but believes people need to be more educated about how their animal can become dehydrated.

A spokesman for Devon and Cornwall Police said people have the right to break a car window if they believe a dog is in distress.

A statement read: "With warm weather, we always see a rise in the number of reports of dogs being left in cars. The temperature can rise very quickly inside a car during the summer months, dogs do not have the ability to cool themselves down and therefore can suffer from heatstroke, which can be fatal.

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"Police have the right to break the window of a car to free the animal if they believe that a dog is in distress. If a member of public sees a dog in a car in a warm day please call the police immediately and we will advise from there."

It has also been advised that anyone considering breaking in should take a picture of the dog and the car. If someone is with you, get them to bring up the weather for your area on their phone so you can screen shot the temp, then break the car window.

Cornwall Live's poll asking "Should you smash a car window to rescue a dog on a hot day" received 1.4k votes and the following results: Yes (96%), no (3%) and don't know (1%).

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Windscreen fitting company in Cornwall has special offer for anyone who smashes window to save pet - Cornwall Live