I stopped by the grocery store on the way home from work last night, only to learn when I got home that we should head out again because there were several things we also needed more of. So, my husband and I packed the girls up into the car and headed out again. We stopped at the intersection that leads us out of our neighborhood, and what was supposed to be a quick trip to the grocery story--like that ever happens with the whole family in the car, right?--turned into a sad lesson about how doing the right and humane thing is too expensive.
I held up at the stop sign because several cars were headed in our direction, from my left. Just as the first of those cars came up to us, a small dog shot out from our street. I saw her in my driver's side window, a little black streak--and then I heard the sound of that first car hitting her, and I saw her do cartwheels under the vehicle, and I must have said something in those seconds, because it startled my husband and brought his attention to her just as the rest of the cars passed over her body, which lay in the middle of the street. He got out, raised a hand to stop traffic, went out to her, and brought her back to the corner. After a heart-wrenching minute or so, and after other cars came around ours to get through the intersection, he came up to his door. He said she was clearly hurt badly, but that she was, at least at that moment, still alive.
And it started raining right around that time.
I unlocked the car and he loaded her up into the back compartment. It's like the trunk, only I drive an SUV, so it's the cargo area completely connected to the rest of the car.
My daughter noticed what he was carrying, and started to get excited that we were getting a puppy. Sweet CC has been wanting a new puppy ever since we gave hers away--but hers was, when she was 2 and I was carrying a newborn around, too young, too big, too hyper and too much more powerful than he realized. We gave him to a young teen who lived out in the country on a couple acres of land, and who fell in love with him immediately.
And whose mom drove a small car, and who didn't realize how much dog she was going to have to load up into it.
We drove to both of the vet clinics in our town. The second one had a phone number listed for the only emergency vet in the area--a 30-minute drive to the other side of Beaumont. The girl who answered their phone to give us their address told us that we'd have to pay up front for any treatment for the dog. My husband tried to explain to her that it wasn't our dog, and that we'd seen her get hit by another car, who had not even slowed down afterward.
We got directions on how to get there, and we made the drive. When we got there, we were surprised to find that the dog was still alive. While my husband went in with the tech and the dog, my little girl told me all about how she wanted Jamie, the Rhodesian Ridgeback mix we used to have, back, but she wanted a small dog, and this dog's name was Marina. I reminded her that if we still had Jamie, we wouldn't be able to have the bunnies and the chickens, and she consented that that much was a fair enough trade. But she was ready for the vet to make the puppy not be hurt, so we could take her home.
They showed us to a waiting room, and after a few minutes the vet came out. She told us there wasn't much they could say with only a physical exam. That they'd do some x-rays, keep her on IV fluids, monitor her blood pressure, do some blood tests to monitor her internal functions. That it was evident that there was some head trauma, based on the way the dog was holding her head and twisting her neck, and it would be impossible to know how much of a recovery she'd make from that, even if they did keep her alive through the night and repair any other internal injuries. And that since they were the emergency clinic, they were only open on nights and weekends, and someone would need to come in at 6:30 this morning to pick her up and take her to a regular vet for the rest of her treatment.
So, we grappled and we pondered and we prayed, and we knew that we didn't have the estimated $600-$800 for them to keep her through the night, much less the money to take her to a regular vet and have them treat and keep her for an indefinite period of time. We told them just to make her passing comfortable and fast, that we just couldn't leave her in the middle of the road to die, in pain. They made sure we realized we'd also have to pay for burial...
I hope that if I had a dog, and if someone hit her with their car, they'd be able to make the same decision we had and not leave her to her agony. I'd consider it very lucky for someone to put up the money to take one of my pets for treatment. We don't know that anyone owned this dog. She had no tags, and she had no microchip implanted. We're pretty sure we've seen her running up and down our streets before, and she's never been a particularly smart dog when dealing with traffic. Still, she didn't deserve to get hit. She deserved for someone to keep her on a leash or indoors, where she would not be able to run into oncoming traffic the way she did. But with the bill we got, and the estimate we were given, is it any wonder that people have given up on caring? It's very expensive to do the right thing and to be humane.
We didn't go into detail while telling CC why we weren't taking the dog home with us. We just told her that she was going to have to stay with the vet, because she was so badly hurt, and that they would take care of her.
I held up at the stop sign because several cars were headed in our direction, from my left. Just as the first of those cars came up to us, a small dog shot out from our street. I saw her in my driver's side window, a little black streak--and then I heard the sound of that first car hitting her, and I saw her do cartwheels under the vehicle, and I must have said something in those seconds, because it startled my husband and brought his attention to her just as the rest of the cars passed over her body, which lay in the middle of the street. He got out, raised a hand to stop traffic, went out to her, and brought her back to the corner. After a heart-wrenching minute or so, and after other cars came around ours to get through the intersection, he came up to his door. He said she was clearly hurt badly, but that she was, at least at that moment, still alive.
And it started raining right around that time.
I unlocked the car and he loaded her up into the back compartment. It's like the trunk, only I drive an SUV, so it's the cargo area completely connected to the rest of the car.
My daughter noticed what he was carrying, and started to get excited that we were getting a puppy. Sweet CC has been wanting a new puppy ever since we gave hers away--but hers was, when she was 2 and I was carrying a newborn around, too young, too big, too hyper and too much more powerful than he realized. We gave him to a young teen who lived out in the country on a couple acres of land, and who fell in love with him immediately.
And whose mom drove a small car, and who didn't realize how much dog she was going to have to load up into it.
We drove to both of the vet clinics in our town. The second one had a phone number listed for the only emergency vet in the area--a 30-minute drive to the other side of Beaumont. The girl who answered their phone to give us their address told us that we'd have to pay up front for any treatment for the dog. My husband tried to explain to her that it wasn't our dog, and that we'd seen her get hit by another car, who had not even slowed down afterward.
We got directions on how to get there, and we made the drive. When we got there, we were surprised to find that the dog was still alive. While my husband went in with the tech and the dog, my little girl told me all about how she wanted Jamie, the Rhodesian Ridgeback mix we used to have, back, but she wanted a small dog, and this dog's name was Marina. I reminded her that if we still had Jamie, we wouldn't be able to have the bunnies and the chickens, and she consented that that much was a fair enough trade. But she was ready for the vet to make the puppy not be hurt, so we could take her home.
They showed us to a waiting room, and after a few minutes the vet came out. She told us there wasn't much they could say with only a physical exam. That they'd do some x-rays, keep her on IV fluids, monitor her blood pressure, do some blood tests to monitor her internal functions. That it was evident that there was some head trauma, based on the way the dog was holding her head and twisting her neck, and it would be impossible to know how much of a recovery she'd make from that, even if they did keep her alive through the night and repair any other internal injuries. And that since they were the emergency clinic, they were only open on nights and weekends, and someone would need to come in at 6:30 this morning to pick her up and take her to a regular vet for the rest of her treatment.
So, we grappled and we pondered and we prayed, and we knew that we didn't have the estimated $600-$800 for them to keep her through the night, much less the money to take her to a regular vet and have them treat and keep her for an indefinite period of time. We told them just to make her passing comfortable and fast, that we just couldn't leave her in the middle of the road to die, in pain. They made sure we realized we'd also have to pay for burial...
I hope that if I had a dog, and if someone hit her with their car, they'd be able to make the same decision we had and not leave her to her agony. I'd consider it very lucky for someone to put up the money to take one of my pets for treatment. We don't know that anyone owned this dog. She had no tags, and she had no microchip implanted. We're pretty sure we've seen her running up and down our streets before, and she's never been a particularly smart dog when dealing with traffic. Still, she didn't deserve to get hit. She deserved for someone to keep her on a leash or indoors, where she would not be able to run into oncoming traffic the way she did. But with the bill we got, and the estimate we were given, is it any wonder that people have given up on caring? It's very expensive to do the right thing and to be humane.
We didn't go into detail while telling CC why we weren't taking the dog home with us. We just told her that she was going to have to stay with the vet, because she was so badly hurt, and that they would take care of her.
