If you hit a dog in the road, would you stop

[shooterdon]

If the owner cannot or will not train it to stay home and off the roads, it is not my responsibility. I nearly crashed a new Tahoe avoiding a large dog on an interstate....driving at night and did not see the dog until I nearly hit it. Afterwards I realized what a stupid choice i had made. I will not die, suffer injury or wreck my vehicle to save a dog. Put me on ignore if you consider that cruel and heartless.

The natural tendency is to avoid a collision but it is not the right thing to do in all situations. There is saying..."Don't veer for Deer"....because it can get you killed. I will not Dodge for a Dog.

BTW, in Michigan a dog must be leashed unless it is on the owner's property. It is the law.

It is sad when owners of pets do no care enough about them to protect them. It is stupid for dog owners to think they have rights they do not have. In Michigan, unless you are hunting with dogs, YOU must control them.

 

[Citydude]

Agreed at highway speeds not to swerve. The county road I drive, I'm dodging deer constantly. My pickup grill needs to last me another 20 years

 

[Jstpssng]

To those of you that value a dogs life more then a humans, how do you feel about a cows?
A deers?
Snakes?
mosquitoes?

Although I prefer my dog to most people, I'm not sure that anybody here has advocated choosing a dog over a human.
I do believe that in today's society we are responsible for our pets, whatever they are; and need to accept responsibility for our bad decisions if they affect a dog, cow, snake, or pet mosquito. I also believe in treating an animal as humanely as possible, up to and including the time that you kill it.

 

[Richard]

All good eating....except the mosquitos...lol

A little chocolate dippin, does a lot of fixin....

 

[NorTracNY]

I don't want to believe there are people who wouldn't stop... Its unimaginable to me that if you hit a dog you would just go about your day like nothing happened. ..The people who wold do this..please let me know who you are and ill happily put you on my ignore list. A number of years ago I hit a dog about 1 mile from my house..It ran right out in front of me and I was going 35/40 mph. He was a larger white poodle/golden mix looking dog. He was not killed instantly but did pass. A cop showed up almost immediately as he was just passing by, The owners lived right where it happened and the kid was the only one home. The look on his face still haunts me.

I think you need to understand that people and places vary. Let's learn and give some respect and understanding. Thankfully they are few, but there are still areas in this country that you should NOT stop and get out of your vehicle.

 

[NorTracNY]

Given that I know the answer.....I'll ask anyway!

Who's responsible if a deer hits YOU??!!

I used to drive a Miata so, a pretty small car. Live in country and lots of deer around here. I've learned that if you see one, there is usually one or several more behind it.

I was driving to work one early morning, driving down my "1 1/2" lane county road (sometimes hard for two vehicles to pass without someone going onto shoulder)

Suddenly, I see a deer so I reflexively hit the brakes to slow down/stop. The deer prances across the road in front of me. There was however, the 'dufas' deer behind the lead deer. Dufas deer must not have been too bright.

I was at a dead standstill and the deer simply ran into the front fender of the car. Didn't damage anything. Deer just stopped, paused, then bolted after the first deer.

I just shook my head. I've heard of people hitting deer but I had never heard of a deer hitting the car. I got out to look at the car to look for blood or something (none) but nicely, there was a clean spot where the deer wiped off the surface dirt of the car!!

My brother had the same. Complete stop and the deer put in a football size dent. I've heard of several instances like that. One guy had his old car damaged severely by a large deer that jumped on the front of his car while he was in the middle of a town at a stop light! Scared the cr@p out of him as he didn't see it coming. It destroyed the hood and broke the windshield.

 

[Rock Crawler]

I live on a rural road and my dogs do run free often. We let them out and they do their thing until they want in. They do noit go on the road as a general statement, but I'm not going to lie and say that I know they do not ever go on the road. One thing I do is put a strobing LED collar on both of them. I put a red LED on "Red" and a yellow one on "Angel". I feel that this strobe of LED around the neck gives a car at least a chance in the dark to know that the dogs are nearby.

We did have a black lab get hit and killed maybe 20 years back, the guy stopped. The dog dragged herself to the yard. She was following deer from our pasture across the street to the sportsmans club field, the deer made it, Bandit did not. There was no thoughts of anger to the young man. The dog ran straight across the road. Not the drivers doings. It was a really tough thing to deal with, sitting on the porch in the snow holding my dog as she died in my arms.

But as a dog lover to a fault, I would stop. I would render aid to my ability and try to get the dog's humans if I could. I love dogs more than humans as a general rule, so maybe I am not normal.

If you do let your dogs out to pee at night, do yourself a favor and spend $20 on Amazon and get you a USB rechargeable LED strobe collar so that you give the dog a fighting chance. I also have triple row steel spiked collars on the dogs to at least give them a chance against a coyote, we have tons of coyote around here and the dogs push them back. Luckily I never have lost a pair of dogs to a coyote, but I know that it can and does happen. I figure that a coyote is going for the neck and biting into a thick leather belt lined with sharp steel spikes may be enough to let my dog get away and survive.

Order yourself these, you'll feel a lot better. And you can see the dogs out in the pasture at night and know about where they are.

https://www.amazon.com/LED-Dog-Collar-Rechargeable-Available/dp/B00UAINMMK/ref=sr_1_1_sspa?dchild=1&keywords=led+dog+collar&qid=1634574258&sr=8-1-spons&psc=1&spLa=ZW5jcnlwdGVkUXVhbGlmaWVyPUEzTzUxOU5EMUY2UFo2JmVuY3J5cHRlZElkPUEwNzkwNzM5M1VKR081VzJXTTBEUyZlbmNyeXB0ZWRBZElkPUEwMjA5OTgzMjU2NUM0RkRLU1RSVSZ3aWRnZXROYW1lPXNwX2F0ZiZhY3Rpb249Y2xpY2tSZWRpcmVjdCZkb05vdExvZ0NsaWNrPXRydWU=

 

[Rock Crawler]

Oh, this is exactly the ones that I have for my dogs, $12.99. I bought and have been using them since 2/22/2019. These charge with any standard USB micro cord like all of your older cell phones took. I never let them go dead, I'll plug them in every few weeks and charge them.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B072Z7W5JQ/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&th=1

 

[oosik]

My dog - Brownie - is a small brown Cocker Spaniel. He is my only companion out here in the boon docks. So .... sure - he is treated like my child.

He is NEVER let out of the house without me going out with him. I'm not concerned that he will run out on the county road. It's a mile down my driveway to the county road. For that matter - Brownie is never out of my sight when we are outside.

My concern - coyotes. They are everywhere around here and poop at the very beginning of my driveway. Just to let me know they are still here and still hungry.

 

[ROUSTABOUT]

Vehicles have the right of way on the road. Period. I try my utmost to not hit a dog. Just as three people just stopped because of my dog a few minutes ago. But, if she got hit, she would just be hit.