It is now legal to break into cars to save a dog’s life in Tennessee

If you’ve ever come across a dog locked in a car on a too-hot-to-handle day, Tennessee is here to help.

Starting this month, if you see a helpless animal trapped inside a hot car with the owner nowhere in sight, the state says you now have the liberty to save it.

WKRN reports that it’s an extension of the Good Samaritan law – the same law that allows people to help children locked in a hot car and protects its users from civil liability if they happen to damage the car while preforming a rescue.

Nashville Fire Department Chief of Staff Mike Franklin told WKRN that if you act responsibly and reasonably “you will not be at fault to save a life.”

“The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA) strongly supports states giving law enforcement and Good Samaritans the ability to intervene to protect animals suffering in hot cars,” Chloë Waterman, the group’s senior manager of state legislative strategy told The Huffington Post.

But if you’re not in Tennessee, or any other place that allows for the breaking into cars to help pets, Waterman says call 911 immediately.

“It only takes minutes for a pet to face death.”

But before you flex your heroism by breaking into a car in Tennessee, you will be expected to have tried to find the owner and should have notified law enforcement.

The Humane Society urges owners to never leave their dog trapped inside a parked car, “not even for a minute.”

“On a warm day, temperatures inside a vehicle can rise rapidly to dangerous levels,” the site reads. “On an [29 degrees Celsius] day, for example, the temperatures inside a car with the windows opened slightly can reach [39 degrees] in 10 minutes.”

The group also stresses that it important to remember that it’s “not just the ambient temperature but also the humidity that can affect your pet.”