Woman's Job Goes To Dogs

An Atlanta woman may have lost her job at Neiman Marcus because she tried to help two dogs that had been left in a locked car in the parking lot.

If you've never been in the South during the summer you cannot begin to imagine how dangerous a car parked in the sun can be. Even if you're only going to be gone for "just a minute," leaving a living thing inside one can be deadly.

Would you risk your job to help two dogs in trouble?

Valerie Cheatham, a longtime employee of a Neiman Marcus store in Atlanta, did just that — and may have been fired for her efforts.

Cheatham, 46, told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that it all began on Aug. 2, when outdoor temperatures were about 90 degrees and she spotted two white poodles locked inside an expensive vehicle in the store's parking lot.

"I walked out the door, saw the dogs, went back into the store and got the phone number for Fulton County Animal Control and wrote down the tag number," said Cheatham. "I went out a second time and checked the doors and they were locked."

The sunroof was open, and Cheatham went back inside again, then came out a third time with a paper bowl and a bottle of water. But she couldn't reach the sunroof.

"I'm 5-2," she explained. "I took my shoes off and got on the hood."

Just then, according to Cheatham, the car's owner came out in a rage.

"She was just screaming," said Cheatham, who added that the angry woman called her "fat and ugly" and told her to get off the "$80,000 car."

Then, Cheatham said, came the clincher.

"I hope you're somebody," the car owner allegedly said, "because I'm going to have your job."

Two days later, Cheatham came into work and was told she no longer had a job.

"I said, 'I'm 46, and I've never been fired before, but I'm going to go home and sleep like a baby because I didn't do anything wrong, and I hope you can do the same because those dogs were in danger,'" Cheatham told the Journal-Bulletin.

A Neiman Marcus spokeswoman said Cheatham had been a "glorified secretary" who had been in trouble before.

Susan Feingold of Fulton County Animal Control told the newspaper that the vehicle's interior would have been "very dangerous" for the poodles.

"Even if the sunroof is down and the windows cracked," said Feingold, "the interior would be very hot within five minutes. It can be fatal."

There are two sides to every story, so I won't bother complaining to Neiman Marcus about it. They may have had other reasons for their decision. My anger is directed at the stupid cunt who left her dogs in the car. She should be tied up and left in her $80,000 death trap until she drowns in her own sweat.