A Bad Day

This morning I was driving in my neighborhood with my 4^th grade son in the backseat and going about 25-30 miles per hour. Suddenly a dog ran in front of me into the narrow street from a yard on the left hand side of the street. I slammed on the brakes but I hit him.

I have never collided with an animal before. Not that time I was driving on the highway a flock of geese waddled across the interstate but they made it past my car in the nick of time. And weekly there are suicidal squirrels that dart into the residential streets and dodge my tires somehow. And there have been deer that have dashed in front of me in time.

But today it happened. As soon as I slammed on the brakes I felt the thud and was horrified, and then surprised to see the dog quickly upright again in front of my car and then he high-tailed it into a yard and went behind a fence I assumed. It was a 7-8 month old size of a dog that resembled a German shepherd mix. I got out of the car and didn’t see the dog anywhere. I looked at my front bumper and saw some spit and dirt on it (and no dents, no blood). When I got back into the car my son knew the details better than I did. He knew it had a red collar. He said as I was looking at my bumper he saw it dash in front of us again and went back to the side of the street from whence it came, and across a lawn and disappeared. I drove around the neighborhood (which consists of several streets) a little bit before going back home (we were on our way back home after being at the school to turn it forms and prior to my heading in to work).

Then I had to go to work but I drove around the neighborhood again and saw no one. Halfway to work I called home to remind the boys something (the two older boys were just getting up) and my oldest son told me he heard about the incident from his younger brother and said it might be the new dog of his friend (let’s call him Justin). Great. So I asked for Justin’s phone numbers (I know the parents from some phone conversations and baseball field chat and that time their son fell off a skateboard in front of our house and I bandaged him up better than the ER the mom told me later). No one answered the home phone or Justin’s cell phone. I then asked my oldest and youngest to walk a block away from our house to their house and just put them on the phone with me so I could talk to them. They did but no one answered the door. About an hour later no one at Justin's house was answering their phone still, so I asked my two sons to go back up the street and try again and just put me on the phone if they answer the door.

Well, this time the mom answered the door and my son told the mom what happened (he didn’t call me till he walked back home since it was good news for Justin’s family) and they saw their own dog sitting right there with a black collar and of course my youngest son confirmed it was not the dog I hit. The mom told my son that the same thing almost happened to her the other day with probably this same dog.

Anyway, I have not been to concentrate on anything else today although I have had to do lots of things today. I’ll probably have post-traumatic feelings later tonight. I’ll be walking around the neighborhood tonight to see if anyone knows anything. That dog has to be hurting and I feel really, really bad.