I just saw a very sweet doggie get hit by a car a block from our house, right in front of its family, by a friend of theirs. The poor doggie.
It was such a helpless feeling, and I can’t imagine how it was for them - I don’t think there was a damn thing that could have been done, even if a vet had been on the scene. And I hope their toddler was too young to understand what was going on.
It took me a minute to figure out what had happened - one doggie on the sidewalk and the other lying in the middle of the street, thrashing. At first I thought they had gotten into a fight or something, and then I saw a youngish guy trying to figure out how to juggle a stroller and another dog and get the injured dog out of the middle of the street without getting hit himself. I left the car in the middle of street to see whether there was anything we could do, but there wasn’t.
Poor doggie. The guy picked him up and lay him down by the edge of the road and didn’t know what to do, because it was pretty obvious that he was a goner, so just rubbed his belly. Blood all over the middle of the road, and cars coming from both directions, and this was a relatively quiet side street. I had to move the car out the middle of the street and somehow managed to make it into our garage, where I sat for a while, weeping.
Please keep your dogs leashed in unenclosed dense urban areas!
Poor doggie. I can’t get the image out of my brain.
Oh, I hate that. It will be upsetting for a bit. I watched a cat die like that a few months back. The car that hit him just kept going. I stopped and patted his head til he quit breathing. The cat was actually purring as it died. I got a trash bag out of my car and wrapped the cat in it and took it home and buried it in my pet graveyard. Thete were no houses around so I assumed it was a dropped off/abandoned pet. He’s mine now. I named him John Doe Cat. He has affected me in ways I can’t quite describe. He had a meaningful life even in death. Which is how all living things should be.
Yeah, I don’t get it - when my family had dogs they were on leashes. When I had cats I kept them indoors, except for the cat my roommate the Cat Whisperer taught to “prowl” on a leash. I hate, hate, hitting animals with a vehicle (which, no matter how careful you are, can happen) even though so far they’ve been squirrels, a bird, and something I never saw but ran over around 11 pm in my pickup. I’ve also dragged roadkill pets off the pavement, and watched more than one dog and cat die after being hit.
I always hear something about freedom and letting pets be natural or something, but the brutal truth is that you’re putting your animal at risk of dying in agony. Is it really worth it?
Don’t let your dogs run free in not so dense suburban neighborhoods either. Drivers are just as nutty in them.
Plus, I just saw a story on the news about a kid in San Francisco badly bitten by a pit bull running free. They think he lives nearby but have not located him yet, so the poor kid might have to get rabies shots.
If only we could have a law to bite the owner.
Most people with dogs, probably the great majority, don’t let them loose. Though obviously some do, and dogs can escape. It’s often laxity in keeping them contained, not just letting them out wholly on purpose.
But lots of people with cats let them out. Which not only often means the cat ‘never comes back’ (90%=hit by a car), but cats are really destructive to natural habitat with their predation. Few dogs are actually proficient at that.
Seems to me the biggest problem with dogs deliberately let loose then hit by cars is in less than the densest areas. If a dog is let loose around where I live, a truly dense urban area, it’s going to get hit by a car almost immediately (unless it’s an unusual dog aware of avoiding cars). Our dog was picked up stray and sent to the shelter (before we adopted her that is) but in the next city over which has desolate areas where a dog can survive cars for at least awhile.
As for loose dogs dangerous to people, it is nothing to do with ‘pit bull’. It’s everything to do with owner behavior including laxity in keeping dogs contained. But that tends to correlate with other actual causal factors (non-neutered, males especially; chained up not treated like a pet; etc) of dangerous dogs, of which breed (as opposed to size, obviously bigger stronger dogs have more potential to hurt people) is not a causal factor by any evidence. And there’s even less reason to think the appearance of mixed breed dogs (as in ‘looks like a pit bull’) causes them to be aggressive toward people.
Keep your dogs on leash in all areas not specified as “off leash,” period. The worst thing as the OP says is a dog getting killed by getting run over, but there are so many other reasons to keep your dogs leashed. This is one of my ongoing peeves, since I am a habitual walker. A back alley is not an off-leash area; parks are not off-leash areas; schoolyards where dogs aren’t allowed at all really aren’t off-leash areas. Letting your dogs run from your front door to your car is how we watched a little pug get run over one day.
Agreed. In my experience, owners think they know what their dogs are going to do in all situations, but they can’t guarantee that their dog won’t get freaked out by something and react badly. For example, I have a little shopping cart I take to the grocery store; dogs DO NOT like this cart for some reason, and go a little squirrelly when they see/hear it. I don’t want to have to deal with someone else’s dog when all I’m trying to do is walk down the sidewalk.
I hate pets* and still broke my heart both times I’ve see dogs being hit by cars because their owners just let the roam free. Once it was hit and the dog was pushed hard and started wailing, I knocked on every door until I found the owner. The driver was devastated, but it wasn’t his fault: the dog just ran across the street. The other case was similar but the can actually ran the dog over. I don’t know what happened to the second dog (the first one made a full recovery, I saw it roaming the streets again) but still it’s so sad.
Just put a leash, man.
*There is a dog and two cats in mu house and every night at least one of them sleeps on my bed. The things we do out of love.
I’m not a pet person, and it would still break my heart to harm someone’s pet. Just because I’m not the kind to form an emotional attachment to an animal doesn’t mean that others are. So if you love your pet, if you want what’s best for them (i.e., being ALIVE), keep your pet fenced in or leashed. Seriously people.
Drives me nuts. I wouldn’t dream of letting my dog run off-leash. The only off-leash run around time he gets is in the backyard or at doggie daycare. He’s also a pit bull, so I have extra reasons to keep him close, as nobody is going to give him the benefit of a doubt. When I first got him, it drove me nuts to see how many people keep their dogs off-leash as soon as they get to a park. (I have to say, though, there is one owner who has two of the most disciplined dogs I have ever seen who he walks around the neighborhood—big dogs, too. Some lab mix and a shepherd mix. They simply do not run into the street nor cross the street until the owner gets to them and gives them the command to go. It used to peeve me, as there are leash laws here, but I’ve learned to relax in his case. I know al it takes is one fuck up, but I somehow trust this guy and his dogs,)
The person I knew best with seeing-eye dogs used to have her husband exercise them off leash in a Chicago park… but, again, they were seeing eye dogs which arguably have more sense and training in crossing the street safely than most humans.
Also, hilarious because they treated EVERY path and trail exactly the same as a busy street. Her husband would throw a frisbee, the dog would tear off at max speed, come to a screeching halt at a footpath or bike trail, carefully look both ways, then peel off at max speed again, screech to another halt at the next path… they NEVER caught the frisbee mid-air, they just couldn’t do all that before the frisbee hit the ground.
But, let’s get real - most people with dogs off-leash are not exercising current or former seeing-eye dogs.
I ran into that problem when I delivered mail.
When you mace the dog as he is biting your trouser leg (not my leg, at least) the owner comes running out and tells you the dog is so nice.
Yeah, right.
People who let their dog roam free in that setting simply don’t care. Sure they may love their dog or not, maybe love their neighbor or not, but overall love themselves and fuck everyone else including their neighbor and their dog. They are hurt people who want to impose burdens on others to justify their existence nd announce their hurt. What they need is a big hug and a I love you man/girl. But until, then no they won’t do anything intentionally beneficial to their neighbor or their animal.
Yes, I’ve been walking past dogs off-leash in their yards which crossed the street to run up to me, even as the owners told me that they’d never done that before.
I know this is a doggie thread, but my neighbors – who do keep their pups in a fenced yard – let their small, shorthaired cat run around with no collar and no chip. I don’t worry so much about cars as I do people in this neighborhood…some people really do hate black cats for some reason.
