Police have identified two Ontario residents charged in the death of a dog left locked inside a shopping mall parking lot this weekend.
Matthieu Arbour, 21, and Angele Lazurko, 20, of Sudbury, Ont., face animal cruelty charges following the incident at Vaughan Mills Mall on Sunday.
York Regional Police said they were called about a dog locked inside a vehicle in the parking lot of the popular mall just north of Toronto on Sunday afternoon.
Police and fire crews attempted to rescue the dog -- a young chocolate Labrador retriever -- but it was too late.
When police arrived on the scene the temperature was 28 Celsius.
Two suspects were arrested at the scene and charged with causing unnecessary suffering to animals.
They are scheduled to return to a Newmarket, Ont., court on July 10.
The same day the couple were identified, police responded to another report of a Chihuahua left in a car, as temperatures topped out at 28 Celsius and high humidity made it feel even hotter.
In that incident, Toronto Animal Services said the dog was only in the car on The East Mall for about and hour and it was in good health when police and fire crews removed it from the vehicle.
The dog was examined by Animal Services and was given back to the owner.
The owner, who was visiting Toronto from out of town, was fined $260 and was also ticketed for failing to provide water, police said.
