Three dogs died locked inside a rental moving truck in San Antonio, according to police. Their owners were found nearby, passed out and drunk in a pickup at a North Side storage facility. The moving truck was shut off, with no air conditioning and blankets hung over its windows.

The dogs were two American Staffordshire Terriers, one white and one gray, and an Australian Cattle Dog mix. They had no way to escape the heat.

San Antonio police arrested both owners on animal cruelty charges. One also faces a driving while intoxicated (DWI) charge, and the other was charged with public intoxication. The case now sits with the Bexar County District Attorney’s Office, led by District Attorney Joe Gonzales.

This is not the first case like it. In August, a man in Northeast Bexar County was accused of leaving his dogs in a hot car while he passed out from drinking inside his home. Those dogs died too.

Texas law already bars people convicted of cruelty to non-livestock animals from having animals for five years. But that protection only works when a case is charged seriously and carried all the way to a conviction.

Anthony Norris, who rents office space at the storage facility, told KSAT 12 News the owners “probably shouldn’t be able to have pets again.” Texas law can make that happen.

The Bexar County District Attorney’s Office should pursue the strongest charges the evidence supports for each of the three dogs, and see the case through so the five-year ban on owning animals applies.

Sign the petition to demand full justice for these three dogs, before another pet dies in a hot vehicle in Bexar County.