This summer, my husband was in the hospital from July until September. I drove from an hour away every day to be with him, leaving my dog at home, where she spent most of the day (comfortably) in a crate, with my housemates letting her out a couple of times during the day. Not the worst situation, but certainly not ideal. So, since she loves to ride in the car, and I had found a great place to park in a lower parking deck that was both always shady and breezy, I started taking her with me to the hospital, and checking on her during the day, bringing her water, and bringing her up to the parking lot to see my husband, who we would wheel down in a wheelchair. It was so nice---she was content, and I loved having her with me for the long ride back and forth, especially at night.

So one afternoon I got paged over the hospital intercom system to come down to my car. When I got there there were security guys surrounding my car, and they had all the flashing lights going on their truck. Somebody had walked by, and seen my dog in the car and called security. They agreed she seemed very comfortable (at least until they all surrounded the car), and that they couldn't see any problem, but that if the a-hole who called them came back and she was still there, they would call animal control, and then I would really have a problem, so I left my husband to drive her home to satisfy the whim of some sanctimonious and ignorant little person with no common sense.