At around 3:15 p.m. today, we witnessed a City of Vancouver parking enforcement officer issue a ticket to a parked vehicle on West Broadway (between Burrard and Pine Street).

Busters Towing was getting ready to tow the car away because it was parked in a 3 to 6 p.m. no-park zone; it’s not rare to see vehicles towed and impounded in a high traffic area.

We thought it was no big deal, until we saw a dog inside the car.

It was curled up at the back near the rear window shield, probably wondering what was happening and when its owner would return. Except for a small crack in the sunroof, it didn’t look like any windows were rolled down.

We asked the parking officer if it was legal for the city to tow a car with a pet inside of it, he replied: “We have to tow the car because it has violated a parking bylaw.”

Then we called the City of Vancouver’s parking department, and asked a representative whether there was a policy that dealt with towing vehicles with pets or humans inside of it.

The representative said that we should call Busters Towing, because they were now in possession of the towed car.

An agent at Busters Towing told us that in this kind of weather, if the owner of the towed vehicle with a pet inside does not claim his or her car in 30 minutes, they would call Vancouver Pound (Vancouver Animal Services) to deal with it.

Long story short, don’t forget about your pets (or children) in the car because if it gets towed, you will have to go through a lengthy process to retrieve them (and they’ll probably stay mad at you for a few days).