A woman is charged with felony animal cruelty after she left a dog to swelter to death in her car while she drank and played pool in a bar.
 The woman, Lynn Alison Barr, 55, is charged with aggravated animal cruelty and public intoxication for the incident that happened Saturday outside Dr. D’s pub on Smithville Highway.
According to police reports, Barr had been drinking at the bar for a couple of hours when other patrons noticed there were a couple of dogs inside her vehicle. It was around 6 p.m. and the temperature was still well into the 80s.
“They stated the windows were only cracked a couple of inches and the temperature inside the car was dangerously hot,” said McMinnville patrolwoman Rachel Nichols regarding the eyewitness accounts.
Barr, who had been shooting pool and drinking, was eventually confronted by the patrons concerning the danger she was putting the dogs in by leaving them in the hot car.
“When she was confronted by some of the customers about the animals, she removed the Rottweiler from the car and walked it across the street to the flea market,” Nichols revealed. “Minutes later she returned to the bar without the dog to drink again and the management refused to serve her.”
Police were called after she tried to re-enter the bar against wishes of management. Police found her across the street at the flea market and immediately determined she was drunk. She was with her son at the time but he did not have a driver license. She was arrested for public drunkenness and jailed.
It was while she was being booked for the misdemeanor that police were directed to a tent at the flea market where Barr was seen taking the dog. The animal was found dead. Another smaller dog survived.
The arrest is not the first for Barr involving animals. She was convicted of selling a live rattlesnake to an undercover wildlife agent in 2013. She was fined for the misdemeanor.
While it would not have saved the Rottweiler’s life since it only pertains to humans, a new state law makes it legal for a person to smash the window of any vehicle where a child is in peril due to being left alone in an unventilated vehicle. The only requirements are the door must be locked and cannot be opened by other means and law enforcement is called to take a report.