[BTW, I'm the person formerly known as ToxMan. I took the opportunity to drop the "Man" part, which seemed a bit cartoonish after all these months.]

I'd have posted here sooner, but my wife and I were out of town for a 3-day weekend at the shore. Which is where this starts.

So there we were on a beautiful Friday afternoon, top down, driving along a busy 4-lane street at 50 or so when a dog runs onto the road from the right and goes directly under the right front tire. He was moving full-tilt and was so close that if he'd come out a tenth of a second later he would have hit the side of the car.

I was riding shotgun, so I got a complete view. And I do mean complete. Sight, sound, smell, and feel. And if my mouth had been open, I guess I'd have gotten taste as well.

The dog was killed instantly (or at least he died in the 20 seconds or so it took us to stop and get back to him), so he did not suffer. The owner lived right there. She told us the dog was usually tied, but she'd let him loose to play with another dog.

I've never been in this situation before, and found I had some strongly mixed emotions. I mean, what can you say? You're sorry the woman's dog is dead, but it's no more your fault than if he'd been hit by lightning. You're somewhat ****ed that you have to stand there holding a dead dog while she cries over it, you can't really bring yourself to point out that after all she's responsible. And then...

...there's the damage to the car. Visualize the little rubber flap at the front edge of the wheel well. Apparently when the dog went under the front wheel, it pinned this flap against the tire. The flap is part of the wheel well liner. The tire caught the flap and peeled the entire liner right out of the wheel well, ripping out all the fasteners in the process and shredding the liner. On its way out the liner also scuffed the paint on the fender and cracked the bumper cover.

We'll talk to the insurance agent and Honda today and find out what all this will cost, but I'm guessing it'll go over $1000 dollars (i.e., new liner & fasteners, repaint the fender, and probably a new bumper cover) of which we'll have to pay $250.

So maybe it was a mistake not getting in the woman's face. I'll never know -- I just couldn't do it.

I'll come back here and let you know how it comes out.

 

Welcome back Tox, I'm really sorry to hear about that. I do know what you mean though its hard to blame somebody who's balling in front of you. I would have done the same thing if it makes ya feel any better. Altough its by no way your fault, I bet she would have given you the 250 to get her dog back. I know I'd feel that way if my dog got whacked.

 

I think it was a compassionate thing not to get in the woman's face. Of course, she should have been more careful to not let the dog loose. It ****es me off when I see irresponsible pet owners. Pets are like children...never set your eyes off them. In any case, it's a tragedy for this to happen for both parties. Hope it all works out!

 

on the brighter side....could of been a moose...

 

Isn't it funny that my rear end started acting up the same day? Friday the 13th historically has lived up to expectations for me. 6 years ago (when I was a young young lad), I got kicked out of my house that day. I packed my bags, and stormed off down the street, turned the corner, and flew down that residential street. As luck would have it, a family was walking down the street. Out of nowhere, a 135lb black lab comes storming towards the side of my car - I'm foolishly going 55mph at this point. I swerved to miss it, but he caught the front of my Escort, and smashed him down the side of my car. Of course, I slammed on the brakes, horrified. As I came to a stop, I angrily slammed my fists down on the steering wheel, which broke my wrist. The lady thought I was mad at her for not keeping her dog on a leash. Oh, and I was late for work. That was a nice day, let me tell you.

 

Tox sorry to hear about your encounter.

I also had a similiar experience but mine was with a cat. In my case my front spoiler got chipped at the left corner and the small flap also broke of with impact when I drove over the cat, killing it instantly.

It has been 7 months and I haven't fixed it, since the entire lining of the wheel well did not rip off, unlike yours. Also the damage can be seen from the front only, the front spoiler being chipped. So anyways it would cost more than $1000 & I don't feel like fixing something that I can't see and maybe might get the new spoiler from JS racing

 

Tox,

I'm sorry to hear about your accident. I can only imagine how tramatizing the whole thing must have been. As an animal lover, I would have done the same thing as you - worry about the dog first and the car second. While there is nothing that you can do about the dog, I hope you can get your car fixed without any problems. It sounds like you were kinda lucky, escaping with only minimal damage. Good luck!

 

VaporTrail -- yow. The wrist definitely ices it. In my case the dog was a smallish boxer, perhaps 40 pounds. As dbw suggests, things could have been much worse. (Tox's hypothesis: The better the car, the smaller your tolerance for hitting things with it. If I had a Ferrari I suppose even hitting bugs would bother me.)

At least our situation led to a few sardonic one-liners later in the weekend, such as when my wife dressed in a black t-neck and black slacks for dinner and I suggested that she looked like a puppy-killing ***** from New York. (We're real jokers in my family.) When she got huffy about this I backed right off, though, and pointed out that I said she LOOKED like this, but of course she's really from New Jersey.

 

That is really unfortunate...sorry. I had a similar thing happen a few years back, a big black dog was chasing a bird and ran into my passenger door. I saw him comming and slowed down but bam..crunched in the right door. The owner was there and saw it. I got estimates and his homeowners insurance sent me a big check then.. my Ins co fixed it.. Every cloud has a silver lining. It paid for a set of headers!

 

Tox, both of my dogs are Boxers, and your story makes me INCREDIBLY glad that I trained both of mine to never go into the street (both screech to a halt at the curb).

I definitely feel for you, Tox, but as a Boxer mom myself, I can only imagine how the dog's owner feels. Thanks for taking the route you did about how to take care of the damage. I know that the favor wil be returned tenfold in the future!