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A man charged with leaving two dogs in a freezing car overnight Thursday may have taken refuge in a Halifax shelter where pets were not allowed.

A woman who said she had knowledge of the incident said the man had fallen on hard times and spent Thursday night in a shelter.

“I’m guessing that his dogs were unable to go in with him and that he felt he had no choice but to leave them in his car,” the woman wrote in an email to The Chronicle Herald.

“I think we can all agree that this was not a wise decision. What would you do in the same position?”

Shelter Nova Scotia operates the Metro Turning Point for men on Barrington Street and Barry House for women on Gottingen Street, offering emergency shelter for those experiencing homelessness.

Linda Wilson, executive director of Shelter Nova Scotia, said its facilities do not accept pets.

“About five or six years ago, we tried to take animals into our shelters but there were too many people with allergies and we had to stop doing it,” Wilson said.

She said anyone coming to the Shelter Nova Scotia facilities with pets would be told that they unfortunately could not be accommodated.

“That’s how it would go,” she said.

She said the only Halifax shelter that accepts pets is Out of the Cold, an emergency winter shelter that is open from December to April.

Halifax police say they were called to a Gottingen Street parking lot at 8 a.m. on Friday after it was reported that two dogs were in distress in a car.

The overnight temperature had dipped to -11 Celsius and the police news release said the wind-chill temperature was -22, although the dogs in the car would have been sheltered from the wind chill.

A 48-year-old man from Yarmouth was issued two summary offence tickets for causing an animal to be in distress and for failing to protect an animal from the cold.

He is to appear in Halifax provincial court at a later date.

Halifax Animal Services were called to take the dogs to a local shelter.

The woman who contacted this newspaper said she has been told that the man “adores his dogs and is despondent that he’s lost them.”

She said Facebook commenters were rightfully concerned about the dogs but many felt that the owner should be locked up. She said the man could be somebody who was living the result of some unfortunate circumstances and deserves a second chance.

“I don’t know where this man is and I don’t know where his dogs are,” she said. “But I do know that he’s beside himself and that society kicked in to provide relief for his dogs but not their loving owner.”