Police don’t advise smashing car windows to rescue dogs in hot weather

Claims that “police say” you can smash a window to rescue a dog from a hot car after taking a photograph and waiting five minutes have been shared almost 180,000 times on Facebook. 

The posts, which encourage others to copy and paste the content in order to share it more widely, say: “Police say if you see a dog locked in a car in case of high heat, take a picture of the dog and the car, call the police, wait 5 minutes and break the car window. 

“This way you will not be charged with criminal damage and will give evidence to the police to take the dog owners to court.”

But this isn’t true. The National Police Chiefs’ Council told Full Fact that the information shared online is “not accurate”. 

A spokesperson for the organisation added: “If you…