Just Seen a Dog Hit By a Car

[Alka Seltzer]

I'm cautiously optimistic the dog may have escaped serious injury, but I'm really not sure. I was walking down a lane when a very large red-coated Mastiff jumped out of the window of a 4x4, and was hit by a small car coming in the other direction. A short while later the dog got up and made it to pavement to join myself myself and the driver of the car. It wasn't walking normally, but was placing it's weight on all four legs. The dog deported itself dog with an air of calm and dignity, except for depositing an enormous shit on the pavement and sporting a huge erection. I'm concerned about the latter, I hope it was just some sort of stress reaction rather than a sign of nerve damage. Or it might have preceded the accident, there was another Mastiff in the 4x4. If anyone could shed some light on this I'd be grateful. I'm guessing he was stunned or possibly even concussed, but was at least alert enough to turn around so he could watch his owner while he backed up his car. I couldn't hear any wheezing, and there was little blood. The owner assured us he would take him straight to the vet.

My impressions of exactly what happened are a bit confused, as I looked up too late to see where the dog had come from. At first I thought he'd been hit by both cars. The speed limit on that road is 40mph, but both vehicles might have been travelling a little slower than that. The driver slammed the brakes on. At a guess, I'd say it hit at maybe 10-15mph, as the car didn't travel far after the impact. There was no visible damage to the car, just some dog hair. I'm not sure, but I think it may have caught the dog's left shoulder or ribs. It spun him out of the way, and I'm pretty certain the wheels didn't go over him.

I'm not sure what the breed was, this is the nearest match I could find on Wikipedia. I hope he isn't too badly injured. Just falling out of the window at 30-40mph must have done some damage.

I'm not sure if the owner was to blame at all. When I saw his 4x4, the rear window was half open, but he might have raised it as he had two other dogs in there other than the escapee.