It’s been a few years now, but not long ago Tesla introduced a unique feature for its cars.

The feature is called “Dog Mode” and the idea is that it will keep the car climate controlled, even when you are away from the car (for example, going to the store), as well as notify anyone passing by that your pet is safe by placing “My Driver Will Be Back Soon, Don’t Worry, the A/C is on it’s 70 Degrees.”

You leave your dog in the car, you turn on dog mode, and then your dog stays nice and comfortable – all while notifying anyone passing by that your dog is perfectly safe (so they don’t break down your window).

Dog mode is a smart idea. Many people, even today, leave dogs in the car for long periods of time. They crack open a window and think that will be enough for their dog to survive, only to return to the car and find that their dog has overheated and is experiencing a medical emergency.

This is clearly a better alternative. Tesla also added a feature that will notify the owner if there is a problem with dog mode so they can hurry back to their car.

Still, while the idea behind dog mode is a good one, it’s also important to remember that:

• This is an animal’s life.
• This type of technology is notoriously unreliable.

That doesn’t mean that dog mode “doesn’t work.” It’s pretty rare, thankfully, for dog mode to fail. But the issue is that, when failures do happen, the results can be disastrous.

Now, you might think that, because these issues are rare, it’s generally a risk worth taking. After all, you need to keep your dog safe from the heat anyway, and it’s certainly safer than being tied up outside of a property in 100 degree weather.  

But that’s missing the larger issue, what dog mode does is it provides a permission structure to leave your dog in the car. Normally, you might leave your dog at home. Or maybe you know of a cool, shaded parking lot that doesn’t have excess heat. You’d go out of your way to make sure your dog is safe and cool. Your dog would not be in a hot car for this situation to occur.

A good way to think about it is this: if we created a suit that allowed people to dive into lava with a 99% success rate, people would absolutely use it, and some of those people would still die (1%). Had we not created this suit, people would not have gone into the lava in the first place.

What “dog mode” does is it makes people feel like it’s okay to leave their dog in the car in the heat. Instead of finding a cool place or leaving their dog at home, they take their dog with them and then leave it in the heat, relying on notoriously buggy and glitchy software to protect your dog from the elements.

So, while it seems as though few dogs have died because of a glitchy dog mode, those dogs that did die likely would have been safe, because they would not have been in the heat in the first place.

To be clear, the people that trusted and relied on dog mode only to have tragedy strike are not to blame. They were told a product worked, trusted that product, and experienced a pain that we hope few people have to experience.

Still, given the historical problems that Tesla has had with safety, the risk of software bugs, and the extreme heat that many dogs would experience if the Dog Mode did turn off, it is recommended you do not use it unless you absolutely have to. Leave your dog at home or find a safe, cool spot. When it’s that hot outside, your dog is not going to be safe on walks anyway, and it is better to protect your dog from the possibility of injury rather than rely on this software.

If there is some emergency and you have to leave your dog in a car, then taking a risk on dog mode makes sense. But if you’re just taking your dog with you everywhere and parking in the sun by choice, maybe it’s better to consider leaving your pet at home.