December 6, 2002 - I hit a puppy this morning. :(

I saw a car slow down in the middle lane of the road, and I thought the driver was lost, just looking at the street signs. I kept going, and the puppy popped out from in front of the other car right as I was about to pass the lady. :( I could hear it growling as the car screeched to a stop. I kinda freaked out. I didn't know what to do. I went up and looked, and it was alive, but pinned under the car upside down and kind of twisted. It looked at me calmly, but I had no idea what to do. Luckily, like 4 people stopped to help. The lady who had stopped originally used her cellphone to call someone, and a guy in a suit stopped and he pretty much took control. He told me to get a jack, which I did. Soon, a guy with a big, fast jack brought his instead, and when we got the car up, the dog growled and tried to run away. One of the guys grabbed it and held on tight. I think we were all just stunned that the dog COULD get up at all. I know I was.

After the initial fuss, the dog stayed very calm the rest of the time. She was laying on her back, kind of curled up and not moving much, but her face still looked perfectly calm. After a while, it started pushing on my arm with it's back legs, so we were glad to see some movement down there. Eventually, we decided it would be better to take it to an animal hospital they all knew was close by, instead of waiting for animal control to come. Someone said they were afraid that we would just be sitting here watching it die, when we could just take it to the hospital. I put the back seat down and we careful set the dog in there to take it to the hospital. It promptly moved over a little bit and laid down in a perfectly normal dog position. On the way there, it even sat up and started looking out the window, and it pooped in my car - which was just fine with me.

By the time we got to the animal hospital (the guy in the suit had lead the way), he decided the dog might be okay to actually walk into the hospital. We went in and filled out a form and told them the story, and he got a leash from them. The dog didn't have a collar. I stayed to finish filling out the form, and he went and walked the dog in. She walked in like she was coming in for her shots or something. Her tail was between her legs, but other than that she looked perfectly comfortable. They took it back, said they'd look for a microchip that would tell them who owned the dog, and would treat it however it needed to be treated. If no owner could be found, it would go to a shelter. I felt awful just leaving her there, but they said unless I wanted to take responsibility for her, there wasn't anything else I could do. I went out to the car and paced a little bit and almost cried, but not quite.

On the way back home, a bird starting flying towards the car, and I slammed on the brakes. It may take a little while before I get over it. I'm just thrilled that the dog seems to be at least mostly okay.