I arrived at work in tears this morning. I can'r believe it.....on my drive in, I hit a dog!
I was in my neighbourhood, driving along (NOT speeding) when I see a large, short haired dog running without a leash along the side walk. As soon as I see this I move my foot to the brake pedal. At that moment, the dog bolts into the road. I slam on my brakes (and I'm screaming at the top of my lungs) and slide for a few feet (it's 30 degrees celcius below zero...the road is frozen over). Just as my car slides to a stop is when I hit the dog. I hit him with the driver side bumper, and I'm guessing I got him on the left hip. I did not run over him....just knocked him off his feet.
I put my car in park, ans as I'm opening the door to get out, I see the dog get up and walk across the path of my car to the sidewalk. He's walking low to the ground, tail between his legs. I look to the side walk and see ANOTHER dog running on the sidewalk, without a leash. (I'm thinking, this is nuts....this street is 60 kms per hour...and I'm sure people go faster than that...why are these dogs off leash?) The owner comes running screaming the dogs name (he was dressed for the weather...he had been outside with his dogs), scoops him up and runs inside a condo complex. I go to move my car out of the way of traffic so I could help the owner, but by then he had run up the stairs and I don't know which apartment he lives in. I waited outside for several minutes...hoping the owner would return outside. I could have given him a lift to the vet if he didn't have a car.
Eventually, I had to leave.
People at my work have been reassuring me that it was an accident and that I did all I could do. I keep thinking that it could have been a child or a person, but my friends tell me there is no way a child would have run fast enough to dart in front of my car like that.
I told them that I'd like to seek out the owner to find out if the dog is ok, but they advised against it saying if he was the type to take his dogs outside off-leash near a busy road...he might also be the type to be a jerk about the situation. They are also trying to reassure me that if the dog walked away (he wasn't limping) then he probably will have some bad bruising (I'm concerned about internal bleeding and the poor hips mnay large breed dogs suffer from) and that's about it.
I have been working in a daze.
For some reason, I feel/felt that because I'm such a dog lover, something like this couldn't possibly happen to me. And now it has happened.
I feel terrible about all of this, and I just needed to share with all of you.
I am a huge dog lover (I was even watching the Westminster Dog Show on TV last night) and this accident is just about the most awful thing.
Thanks for listening. If any one can relate to this, I'd love to hear from you.