Owner of dog left in hot car faces jail after ditching court
A man accused of leaving his pit bull to die in the cab of his overheated pickup truck is now wanted for failing to show up in court.
West Roxbury Municipal Court Judge Paul McManus issued an arrest warrant yesterday for Travis Gustafson, 31, of Boston, who had been summonsed to court to be arraigned on charges of animal cruelty and a dog-tethering or -confinement violation.
Shortly before 4:30 p.m. on Aug. 1, officers went to Burroughs Street in Jamaica Plain on a report of a dog left unattended and in distress in a vehicle, according to a police report.
There they found a pit bull named Max in the cab of a 1989 Chevy S10 pickup truck with only the front driver-side window open less than half an inch and no water inside, police said.
The temperature outside was 87 degrees, while the temperature inside “had to be in excess of 100 degrees,” officers estimated.
The dog “was in full distress, motionless, frothing/ drooling at the mouth and in need of immediate medical treatment,” police said.
Boston firefighters opened the door, took Max out and gave him cold water and oxygen. But due to his “failing condition and the response time delay of animal control,” police said, officers rushed the dog to Angell Animal Medical Center in Jamaica Plain, where Max was pronounced dead.
Gustafson later told officers he left Max in the truck while he was at work in a shop on Centre Street because he was in search of an apartment and had no place to leave the dog, police said.
He told officers he had checked on the dog’s status every hour and had just given Max an ice cream cone before returning to work, police said.
Efforts to reach Gustafson for comment yesterday were unsuccessful.