Kelly and I were driving up to Home Depot today when we encountered a bunch of cars stopped along the side of the road and people standing around. I think both of us first thought "Aw, geez" at first, but then we saw why. In the middle of the road - in the center turn lane with two other lanes on either side - was a dog who had obviously been hit by a car.
There were already two women over at the dog, but they didn't appear to be doing much, so Kelly stopped. I stayed in the car because I didn't want to be one more person in the mix blocking traffic. The next thing I knew, Kelly opened the back of the Explorer and started throwing stuff into the backseat. I jumped out and without asking questions started helping clear a space. Thankfully, we travel everywhere with a yucky dog blanket, so I spread that down. One of the women was holding the dog - she looked to be maybe a German shephard mix - on the side of the road. The other woman was hysterical and kept saying over and over again "What do we do?" Kelly had the first woman put the dog in our car and she started talking about taking the dog to some vet office she'd seen up by Fred Meyer next to Pet Co. Well, after my experiences with our pups and our vet's office, I wasn't about to take this poor creature to some place in a strip mall I'd never heard of that may or may not be open on a Sunday. Because I have our vet programmed in my phone (because we've needed it spur-of-the-moment so often with Lucy), I called them to see if they were open and if we could bring in this poor dog. They were indeed open and said to bring the dog right in.
Kelly and I were incredibly worried about this dog because she looked confused and was drooling a lot, but it only took us about five minutes to get her to our vet's office. Three nurses met us at the door when we got there, one of them came out to the car with a stretcher. I think she saw something about this dog that we didn't - that it needed serious and immediate care and that it wasn't going to hurt her - and just left the stretcher in the parking lot, scooped up the dog and ran her inside. We followed her in to talk to the nurse in the lobby, who asked us a bunch of questions. I think they thought we hit the dog at first, but when we told them that we'd just gotten to the accident just after it happened and seemed to be the only ones who knew what to do and were the only ones not driving a sedan (not that being in the Jetta would have stopped us any) then they realized we weren't to blame, that we were just there to help. But then the doctor came out of the exam room with questions and he sounded pretty mad too, until he realized also that we had no real answers. I think Kelly was a little put off by him at first until we realized that he probably thought it was our fault and that if we were vets, something like a dog coming into our office after being hit by a car would upset us, too. Heck, we aren't vets and it still upset us.
They asked us to sit around for a little while in case the doctor had some more questions. While we were waiting, they found that the dog was chipped (thank goodness) and they called the owner to let her know they had her dog and what had happened. I gave them the name and number of the lady who we think hit the dog - the lady who was in hysterics at the scene - because she'd given it to me and asked me to call her when I knew anything.
We came home then and played with our pups, who had no idea the trauma we had just gone through or why we were both so excited to see them. I called the hysterial lady; she said she was at the vet's office, that she'd just gotten there. She still sounded like she was a disaster about the whole thing.
Later this afternoon, our vet's office called to let us know about the dog. They said that the owner had just shown up (this was actually about five hours later) and had refused x-rays, but that the dog was doing well and had really just suffered massive shock. They'd given her an IV for the shock and by the time the owner had gotten there the dog was alert and walking and doing well. Kelly thanked the nurse for calling us and let her know we had been worried all afternoon. I cried a little more when he told me the good news and we toussled the pups a little more.
And just a little while ago, because we haven't had enough puppy trauma for one day, I noticed a large, open sore on Lucy's leg. It's perfectly round like a nasty, popped blister. So, Kelly and I got to play vet for her, shaving her leg, washing the wound, wrapping her up and topping it all off with the cone she should at this point be so fond of (because she wears it so often). We'll keep an eye on it and in the morning if it looks worse we'll take her into our vet's office.
Honestly, I'm surprised we're not on a first-name basis with them at this point.
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