There are many reasons you should never leave your dog unattended in a vehicle — including the small but underappreciated risk of dog crashes.

A Russian man in Barnaul, a city in southwestern Siberia, has learned this the hard way. Last Saturday he decided to run some errands at a construction goods store and left his Siberian husky puppy alone inside his parked car.

Mistake! The puppy grew increasingly anxious as his owner failed to return and began racing around the front seat. A witness relayed what happened next to The Siberian Times:

“The puppy went mad and managed to pull the wires which led to the engine's ignition. The car was parked on a small hill which helped it get going. The puppy was even steering the wheel, so that the car made a small semicircle and crashed into a parked Mercedes and then a SsangYong car.”

The offending vehicle was a VAZ 2106 — also known as a Zhigula or a Lada. Now you may be wondering, how does a puppy hotwire a manual transmission car?

First, we have to assume the owner forgot to secure the emergency parking brake. Second, most Russian dogs are at least moderately competent in basic auto mechanics.

When Barnaul traffic police arrived at the scene, they “were in stitches of laughter when they realised what had happened,” reports the Siberian Times. “They had no idea who to make responsible.”

They paged the owner, who blamed everything on the puppy. AND WHO COULD BE MAD AT A PUPPY? So the police simply filed a report and left the matter up to insurance companies to resolve.

The husky was unharmed and everyone was amused, except for the owners of the Mercedes and Ssang Yong cars.

And us, at the outrageous lack of dashcam footage.



VAZ 2106/Facebook