JAKARTA – A dog owner who has been widely criticised for leaving her dog in a car for more than eight hours, says she had no intention of allowing her pet to suffer.
Elishia said she left her dog named Valent in her car in the parking lot of Grand Indonesia shopping mall on Friday evening, while she watched a movie in a theatre.
The dog was reportedly thirsty, starving and overheating in the car, which had one window only slightly open.
Elishia said on Monday that she preferred to take her pet everywhere she went instead of leaving it at home because she and her pet were inseparable.
“It’s like my own child. Anywhere I go it wants to follow me,” Elishia told Tanah Abang Police in Central Jakarta.
She said she had to leave her dog because bringing animals into Grand Indonesia was prohibited.
“It would be impossible for me to let Valent, who is my soulmate, suffer,” she said as quoted by kompas.com.
Video footage uploaded by a mall visitor named Tommy Prabowo went viral on the internet over the weekend.
Tommy accompanied the pet until after midnight and tried to give it water through the opening in the window.
He reported the case to the police.
