I was driving home from work on one of the busier streets in my neighborhood when I saw a traffic backup on the opposite side of the road. I realized there was a Suburban stopped because a dog was in the road near it's back passenger wheel. Then the Suburban moved forward and hit the dog. Really freaky when you watch something like that. Poor guy was on his side unable to get up yet, but clearly alive and not seriously, seriously injured.
I immediately grabbed my phone and traffic started moving on my side of the road. I had to wait until I was through the traffic light before I could do a U-turn to see if the dog was okay. Good news is the local police dept. was quick to pick up the phone. They had already informed animal control by the time I got back to the dog.
When I got back, two guys had stopped to get the dog out of the road. One saw what happened and pulled over right away. The other wasn't close enough to see what happened. When he realized people were driving around an injured dog, he blocked traffic and helped get the dog out of the road. Top it off. The Suburban was nowhere in sight. There is no way he didn't know he had hit the dog. He stopped, moved hitting the dog (you could see the back of the truck bounce up), stopped again. Then apparently drove off. The other guy that witnessed it had the same story as me.
The good news is that the dog was still able to walk. In fact, he only walked in circles in a condo parking lot. We figured the dog was really old and blind. He kept walking into the columns and sniffing the ground. He also had a large growth by his right, hind leg and was limping on it. The dog got hit on the left, front shoulder and was limping on that leg, too.
I took these pics with my phone and didn't want to get too close. Never know what a blind, injured dog might do. I really wanted to get him to lay down and pet him happy again.
Turned out to be a wise choice not to go near the dog. Animal control showed up in about twenty minutes. Once he put the collar on the dog got very defensive, snarling and biting.
They started walking and he calmed down. The officer said the dog was probably still in shock and it was good that there was a closed parking lot near by for him to wander in. If no one claims him, he'll be put down though. He did thank us for caring and stopping to help the dog out.It gets me that the Suburban didn't spend 30 minutes of his life to wait for animal control or see if the dog was okay. Or even spent five minutes of his life to get the dog out of the road.
I don't know how to end this, so I'm going to go. I hope the poor guy gets claimed or at least isn't in too much pain.
7 comments:
That is so sad. But you did the right thing. It's hard to see how many people in this world don't care.
What a tough thing. I hope the people in the car are okay too... To have left a dog like that might make you feel terrible afterwards.
I hope they weren't already in crisis when they hit the dog. Sometimes crisis begets crisis. We hit a dog on the way to the hospital for my dad once. horrifying. At least that dog got up and ran away so he must have been sort of okay. Still give me chills.
First off, some people are not nice and have no empathy towards other creatures. It's a good thing you were there to help. And hopefully the animal control officers are animal lovers!
Glad you were there to help!
your awesome!! and I like what Good Yarns said, you never know what other people are going through, trying to optimistic, because I don't understand how someone could just drive off after hitting a dog!
I'm glad you stopped. This is a very sad story, but since I don't know what happened to the dog, I'm going to imagine that a nice old couple adopted him and took him to their farm to bark at ducks and bask in the sun the rest of his days.
Oh that breaks my heart :(
Post a Comment