Fully Prosecute the Nashville Man Whose Dog Died After Being Left in a 140-Degree Car

I run a dog newsletter called I Love Every Dog, and this week I read about a seven-year-old pit bull who died in seizures in a Nashville parking lot, and I have not been able to stop thinking about her.

On August 14, Metro Nashville Police say 20-year-old Benjamin Dawson left his dog and his cat locked in his car at Hickory Lake Apartments in Antioch so he could avoid a scheduled inspection of his unit. He took the animals to a laundromat, came home, and left them in the car again while he went inside. When he returned about an hour later, the temperature inside that car had reached 140 degrees. His dog was vomiting. Within minutes she was having seizures. She died on the grass in the parking lot while he stood there. He told investigators he forgot to leave the air conditioning running and only cracked a window.

Dawson has been charged with aggravated animal cruelty and is due in court on August 19. That hearing is the moment Davidson County District Attorney General Glenn Funk decides how seriously Tennessee takes a case like this one: whether his office pushes for the maximum penalty under the law, including a permanent ban on Dawson ever owning or living with an animal again, or whether this becomes one more case that quietly disappears into a plea deal.

A dog cannot vote, cannot hire a lawyer, and cannot explain what those final minutes felt like. All she had was a person who was supposed to protect her, and he left her locked in a hot car twice, so he would not have to deal with a housing inspection. His cat was in that car too. She survived, but she should never have been there either.

I am asking District Attorney General Glenn Funk to press the full aggravated cruelty charge, seek the maximum sentence available under Tennessee law, and request a lifetime ban on Benjamin Dawson owning or living with animals. Nashville's summers are only getting hotter. A real consequence in this case is one of the few things that might make the next person crack a window and actually turn on the air conditioning instead of walking away.