Earlier this afternoon whilst out with my missus, we had the misfortune of hitting a dog that ran across the road from the local park. A medium-sized Spaniel that the owners had only recently got and for some reason trusted it near a main road off it's lead. It had seen a Squirrel by all accounts.
Anyway, the fault was entirely that of the owners, my missus who was driving never got the chance to brake, hit it with the OSF corner of the car, and luckily it went under the car and out the rear without being run over by the wheels.
My missus was obviously upset, the owners were screaming we should have stopped, my main concern was the dog which was semi-conscious and bleeding slightly from the mouth, but no external physical injuries.
I got the dog to the side of the road and called the emergency vets whilst telling the woman owner to shut up and think of the dog, covered the dog up and immobilised it, explained the situation to the vet and passed my phone over to the owner who'd calmed down some.
Arrangements made to take the dog to the vets, the bloke owner got his car and I lifted the dog into it which by now was more alert but obviously shocked and in pain. They had satnav so bid them good luck and off they went.
My missus was okay just shocked as she'd never hit anything before and it all happened so quickly and out of the blue.
Once we got home I looked at the front of the car and there's a fair bit of damage to the underside of the bumper, plastic wheel arch inner, underskirt and parking sensor. Nothing that can't be fixed with a bit of care, a glue gun and some pop-rivets if need be.
Anyroad, I gave it half an hour longer and called the vets, they were there by then, and asked the receptionist if she could tactfully enquire to see if the owners/dog was insured. If not the instruction was to leave it at that and we'll sort it out at this end. It turns out they think they are so name and number has been passed to me and I said I'll call her tomorrow - now's not the time really.
The damage is immaterial really, what annoys me more than anything else are dog owners who credit their dogs with the same level of intelligence and road awareness as themselves, or maybe not re the intelligence factor. All my dogs, past and present, have been trained with road sense, they're trained to halt on command no matter what they're chasing. and even so, I would never let any of them off the lead near a main road, any road for that matter.
Why do people do it?