For a dog lover, I think one of the worst things you can do is to hit a dog with a car. Many times, there is truly nothing you can do other than stop and hope to find the owner. In my 20+ years of driving, I've hit 3 dogs. Each time, I've come away mad at the owner of the dog. One time, it was a black puppy on a night with no moon and no lighting. I had previously stopped at the house of the owner to give him back his puppies that were playing in the road. When I hit this one and took his poor lifeless body back to the owner – his statement was, "One less to try and find a home for, I guess" – that has stuck with me for the last 15 years.
Last night, I was driving home on a back road. Due to the curves, I was only going about 30 mph when I see a dog running toward the road. I begin to slow down and the dog turns around and heads back into the field. As I am nearing the area where the dog was at, he's nowhere to be seen. Then, all of sudden, the dog bolts out in front of me and I locked down the brakes. Thank goodness no one was behind me. The dog is pushed forward 20 or 30 feet, tumbling the entire time. He gets up and keeps running. I went to get out and the guy (who I assumed was his owner) yells to me, "he's okay, I'll take care of it."
My issue is – why was your dog loose. The county in which I live has a leash/fence law. It's a law that goes unattended as I run into off-leash dogs all the time when I walk the Queen. My biggest fear is Jazz getting loose – I have as many safeguards as I can to prevent it. Protect your dog – keep it within a fence or on a leash.
I bet your heart was pounding like crazy when you saw your dog bolt out!
ReplyDeleteCars are one of my biggest fears with Shio. I've heard of so many Shibas whose lives are cut short because they darted out in front of a car.
That dog is so lucky that you were so alert!