Not sure. How good are you at catching mice?
Run over it again to put it out of it's misery?
Kinda inexact, though. You'd hate to have to do it three or four times before you hit it correctly. Maybe you should carry a gun in your glove compartment just in case. That's legal in Texas, right?
Axe, maybe? "Aw, mom, a car hit Bitsy. Maybe she'll be okay. Wait, mommy! The lady who got out of the car is hitting Bitsy with an axe! Why is the lady killing Bitsy with an axe?"
"Because she's an animal lover."
This is all depends on whether you're fixin' to eat it.
"Because Bitsy wouldn't clean up her room when she was told to, and that's what happens."
I have a hazy memory from my childhood of seeing a neighbor's dog get run over by a train. Actually, parts of the memory are quite clear, like watching the dog looking for ways to cross the tracks between passing train cars. The really hazy parts are things like an image of me and my mom carrying the the injured dog in some seriously bloody towels to the neighbor's house. It was very sad.
They don't come when you call; they don't chase squirrels at all.
Melchett: Now, George. Do you remember when I came down to visit you when you were a nipper for your sixth birthday? You used to have a lovely little rabbit. Beautiful little thing. Do you remember?
George: Flossy.
Melchett: That's right. Flossy. Do you remember what happened to Flossy?
George: You shot him.
Melchett: That's right. It was the kindest thing to do after he'd been run over by that car.
George: By your car, sir.
Melchett: Yes, by my car. But that too was an act of mercy when you remember that that dog had been set on him.
George: Your dog, sir.
Melchett: Yes, yes, my dog. But what I'm trying to say, George, is that the state young Flossy was in after we'd scraped him off my front tyre is very much the state that young Blackadder will be in now. If not very nearly dead, then very actually dead.
George: Permission for lip to wobble, sir?
Melchett: Permission granted.
George: But surely, sir, you must allow me to at least try and save him.
Melchett: No, George. It would be as pointless as trying to teach a woman the value of a good forward defensive stroke. Besides, it would take a superman to get him out of there, not the kind of weed who blubs just because somebody gives him a slice of rabbit pie instead of birthday cake.
I have a fear of hitting a cat or dog small child on my way to work. If I was responsible for something as cute as a pet child lying there, in pain, I think I'd have to stop. But then what the hell do you do? Run over it again to put it out of it's misery? Locate a vet doctor, get all covered in pet toddler guts, and miss class and meetings? Show up looking like a post-op surgeon? It all sounds like a disruptive, upsetting way to start your day and ruin your clothes.
This may help. I agree, it's a tough call.
Keep a few of the new super-strong plastic bags and some disposable plastic gloves in the car trunk. Sometimes shit happens and you'll be prepared for most of the varieties encountered on the road.
Once upon a time I hit something small crossing the road while coming down a fairly steep hill at night in the rain in traffic. I never saw it clearly in front and not at all in the mirrors, there was no place to stop safely, there were no cellphones, and I had two small children in the car. I kept going.
I think I made the right decision but I've felt just a very little bad about it for the last 35 years.
If you can deal with it, I think you should deal with it. By the time you're old there will have been enough you couldn't that adding to the load gratuitiosly isn't a good idea.
You know that, depending on where you live, they have a government agency to handle situations like this, right? Called Animal Control?
It all sounds like a disruptive, upsetting way to start your day and ruin your clothes.
Imagine how it is for your poor victim.
My PCP apologized once for running late. She had hit a turkey on the way into work and wanted to make sure that it was all right. There are a lot of turkeys in this section of Boston. It's weird.
One approach is to blog your denial.
There are a lot of turkeys in this section of Boston.
I'll say.
Stew? I wonder what dogs taste like, I hear carnivorous mammals are extremely gamy, but this would be an opportunity to find out without blowing all that money on a trip to Asia.
At a car rental place in VT last summer, there was a sign on the counter advising the purchase of extra collision insurance, along with a picture of the front end of a car after a collision with a turkey. Holy crap can a turkey cause a lot of damage.
They have government agencies in Texas?
They have government agencies in Texas?
At least one, certainly.
A former cow orker hit a dog that was loose on a country road once. Being country-bred himself, the cow orker went back to the house, got his .22, and put the animal out of its misery. Sure enough, the people who owned the dog were a bunch of goddamned city slickers who whined about him shooting their dog and were almost ready to sue him over it. He squeezed out of it eventually, but it sure is true that the road to Hell is paved with good intentions.
I hit a deer once, on a freeway offramp. I certainly couldn't pull over, and it was certainly dead (I wasn't the first one to hit it, I don't think). Car was fine, oddly enough.
23: It may have been posted here already, but the blog (and a new book) were the subject of an NYT article recently.
A guy on my mission in Ukraine once came across a dog that had been hit by a car and was in really bad shape. He pulled out a pocket knife and slit its throat.
I can't believe no one's linked to this story yet.
Poor old CA (doesn't eat meat, won't wear leather) hit a raccoon on the road and saw that it was lying there writhing. He decides that he has to kill it so it won't suffer. So he pulls over and is trying to figure out the swiftest killing device he has with him. He settles on the sharp, bladey end of of his snow shovel. (He is not someone who grew up gutting things, etc. so this will all be new and horrible, but he feels he has to do it.) Just as he goes to open his trunk to get it, the raccoon leaps up and runs off into the woods and both are spared (and found $5).
The worst bit was hearing the raccoon griping "Jesus Christ, I get hit by a car, lie still for a bit to catch my breath and you start coming after me with a shovel? Goddamn psychopaths," as it slunk off.
I think it has been linked or told here (maybe by me) but the following relevant joke came out as "funniest joke in the world" in a survey a few years ago.
A couple of New Jersey [or substitute your favorite group to malign-JPS] hunters are out in the woods when one of them falls to the ground. He doesn't seem to be breathing, his eyes are rolled back in his head.
The other guy whips out his cell phone and calls the emergency services. He gasps to the operator: "My friend is dead! What can I do?"
The operator, in a calm, soothing voice, says: "Just take it easy. I can help. First, let's make sure he's dead."
There is a silence, then a shot is heard. The guy's voice comes back on the line. He says: "Okay, now what?
If this is meant to be serious, be assured that they can do amazing things to repair cats and dogs these days, and the pet owner will almost certainly want it done. So yes, you are obliged to get your clothes mucky. Not so sure about the inference to toddlers, though.
Dead puppies don't deliver much mail.
Nor do they tell any tales, but you can't be too safe. If you have to off them to shut them up, they're hushed puppies.
I have a fear of hitting a cat or dog on my way to work.
Had a feral mama that took up residence on my back porch of my apt., which indirectly adjoined a line of parking spaces. She had a bunch of kittens. About three-four weeks later, when the kittens were mobile, they took to wandering off the porch. Went down to the back porch one morning to check on the plants, there was a mewling kitten just lying there, with mama standing over it. Examined it, realized it was broken somehow, saw that it was bleeding heavily, complete with white gums, called the ex- and off we went to the vet.
They put the poor thing down (for free, as a mercy service) due to three crushed and one broken leg. Turned out it had decided to sleep beneath a parked car, and when the owner pulled out in the morning, the tires went over its legs. So mama had dragged it up on the porch for me to find.
If I was responsible for something as cute as a pet lying there, in pain, I think I'd have to stop. But then what the hell do you do?
Don't swerve if it isn't safe to do so.
Don't stop if it isn't safe to do so.
If it is safe to stop, and it's a pet of some sort, you'd have to examine it and guess.
A limping dog with a collar needs to go back to the owner, and one without needs to go to (any) vet.
A devastatingly wounded animal sans collar probably needs to be removed to the side of the road at a minimum. If it isn't going to die soon, call the vet and ask. Or you can call animal control as Walt says.
Wild animals are different and depend: in Texas, don't even go near a raccoon or a skunk. (Rabies.) Not that anyone does anyways.
It all sounds like a disruptive, upsetting way to start your day and ruin your clothes.
Yep. So is getting run over.
max
['Do your best.']
I came across a Chihuahua in the middle of the road; it had been hit, and everyone was just driving over it because a) this was during rush hour on a busy street, b) this was also rush hour in winter, so it was dark already, and c) people suck, especially when they're driving. I pulled over into the next side street, ran back, waited for a next lull in traffic, went out to grab it, and it bit me hard on the hand. So I instinctively pulled my arm back, taking the dog with me, at which point it let go and went flying into the air and then, thud, back down on the street. A couple of women pulled up at that moment to grab the dog and take it to the vet, so I'm not sure what happened to the little motherfucker after that.
A few decades ago in rural Illinois I hit a quail. The guy riding with me said "um, are you going to eat that?" So we went back and he ate the bird that night.
I once ran over an armadillo in Reno just to watch him die.
I once killed an Unfogged thread just to watch it die.
I once tried to re-start an Unfogged thread with an accurate, but pointless, comment.
And failed according to an inaccurate, but pointless, followup comment.
I commented in an enthusiastic attempt to get a goofy metathread along the lines of this one going but then thought better of it but then hit post anyhow.
44: Bleary, sleep deprived attempt to keep making jokes with all the other nerds by repeating a comment made late in that thread by a participant in this thread.
47: glorious, top volume rendition of highlights from the Gilbert and Sullivan catalog delivered far too soon.
Deranged, inaccurate rant about non-existent topic.
max
['Pathetic attempt add a joke after failing to be funny.']
Comment which encompasses such a vast architecture of in-jokey, metafictional references to the nature of both posts, threads, and phenomenon that it collapses into itself, causing a self-referentiality cascade which floods the greater internet with such a huge volume of self-referential knowingness that it gains sentience and commences the Singularity. Again.
Comment that seems topical, but steers the conversation to cooking.
You should put his guts in a bag and put him in a drawer.
['Hubba Hubba Hubba Hubba Hubba']
Expression of bewilderment that an activity I have never witnessed is apparently prevalent among yuppies and/or Californians.
Surprise that anyone didn't know of something we do all the time in California. Qualified to express that I am not judging the poor simple deprived people who don't know about it because they live in inferior places.
Terribly belated transatlantic comment that will be ignored because everyone else will be reading the latest post.
Chipper morning greeting and self-indulgent sighing over baby's ability to sleep through the night.
Strangely passionate response to belated transatlantic comment that requires nice knowledge of semi-obscure subject matter.
If you hit a dog or cat on your way to work, I think you're obligated to then take it to a nice farm out in the country with lots of room for it to run around.