Reporter covering animal cruelty is charged with ... animal cruelty

Writing about animals, it seems, doesn't make you an expert on how to treat them.

Eugene Scott, a reporter for the Arizona Republic, has been charged with misdemeanor animal cruelty for leaving his year-old puggle in his hot car for a half-hour in 100-degree while he got a bite to eat. And here's where it gets weird: the incident happened about a year after he wrote about a police sergeant doing nearly the same thing, the Republic reports:

Scott was arrested outside the mall Aug. 15 after another shopper discovered his one-year-old puggle, a pug-beagle mix, barking inside an SUV and called 911. The dog was treated at an emergency veterinary clinic for possible heat stroke and returned to Scott, who was briefly detained in a police substation holding cell.

The incident happened the same day Chandler Police Sgt. Tom Lovejoy was found not guilty of misdemeanor animal-cruelty charges in the death of his Belgian Malinois police dog, Bandit.

While working as a public safety reporter last year, Scott had written initial stories about Lovejoy, the police sergeant who was accused of forgetting his dog in the back of a patrol vehicle a year before, according to the Republic. And then, in a strange coincidence, Scott, the reporter, was arrested on the same day Lovejoy was found not guilty in the death of his dog.

Since repetition clearly can't hurt, here are some tips for caring for dogs in hot weather. And lest history repeat itself, this reporter will pay special attention to pointer number one: "parked cars can become death traps in a matter of minutes."

-- Tony Barboza