I never was able to tell my parents the actual story of how I was hit.  So how did they find out the details?

Here you see the main 4-lane road on the right and the carriage path on the left where people jog and dogs are walked. People also jog and dogs are also walked in the center green park that stretches for miles and miles. It was in this green island that I found the other dogs and into the street on the right where I ran and was hit.

Humans like to talk so, naturally, following my accident, there had been a lot of buzz in our neighborhood amongst dog owners and dog lovers that a dog had gotten hit by a car. Many of these people were shaken up.  They didn’t know if “the dog” had died or had survived.  Nobody put it together that I was the dog that had been hit. They said it was a brown dog (that would describe me), a large brown dog (that would definitely describe me), but when my favorite mail carrier suggested that it was me, Joey, the chocolate Labrador Retriever, people said “No, No, it wasn’t a Lab”.

Within a few days of my returning home, when my parents  started taking me for walks up and down the block and people saw my wounds and my bandages, they starting putting two and two together that it was me who had been run over.  People who my parents talked to said that there had been witnesses to the accident.  Our mail carrier knew  one of the witnesses and told us where this person lived. One day my parents went over to this person’s house.

She had been the person who reached out to grab me to keep me away from the other dogs who I wanted to play with. She had heard my scream and had been haunted by it for days; she had been thinking about me and hearing my scream in her mind over and over for days. Because I ran off, nobody knew whether I had survived; she and several others feared that I had not.

When my parents talked to her, to her great relief, they told her that I had survived.

However, they didn’t tell her that I had survived to write about it!

Now please go to approaching a dog, part 2.

When Jane and Phil and I are outside our home, they have consistently told me to not run into the street, and have done so much to make sure that I do as they say. This has become a problem once or twice when Phil comes home from work and Jane opens the front door to let me run out to him and say “Hello” and I get so excited (and mindless, they would say) that I dart for the street in my abundant joy.  My staying within our property boundary is largely why they installed the fence around our property. In addition, when my parents and I go outside, they keep me on a leash so that I cannot run into the street on my own. Sometimes when we are walking together and we reach a street corner, Phil will say “Sit”, and we remain there until he says “Okay.”

But on this particular beautiful morning, when the sky was bright blue and the air smelled fresh and clean and the morning sunlight was upon me and I could smell the scent of neighboring dogs, all that was meaningless to me. I didn’t care about their warnings.  I wanted to enjoy running and being free and making friends with the other dogs in my neighborhood who were also outside. These are three of my favorite things, and that’s all I cared about. Besides, Dad hadn’t taken me running that morning and I had energy waiting, just screaming, to be released.  And nobody was looking at me, even better. So I set about my work. I started following the scents of other dogs.

I slowly walked up to the beautiful carriage path where some cars drive but many people jog, walk, bicycle, and walk their dogs.  Very good. I had seen some other dogs being walked by their owners along the carriage path and being friendly and I wanted to play with them.  Another person was there walking her dog and, seeing me off-leash and interacting with other dogs, decided to try to grab me by my collar and see where I lived and bring me home. That was when I decided to run in exactly the opposite direction from her. Exactly the opposite direction happened to be into the middle of a 4-lane street.

Here you see the main 4-lane road on the right and the carriage path on the left where people jog and dogs are walked. People also jog and dogs are also walked in the center green park that stretches for miles and miles. It was in this green island that I found the other dogs and into the street on the right where I ran and was hit.

And then, the next thing I knew, I was in a lot of pain and I let out a big cry.

Immediately, people who were walking their own dogs along the pedestrian path were trying to look at the name tag on my collar to find out where I lived and the telephone number to call. The person in the car started to cry.  The sanitation workers, who were driving by during their route, stopped to see how they could help.  One person on the pedestrian pathway got out her cell phone. I think she was trying to call Animal Control.

I know Animal Control very well; they are my friends. Every once in a while when I escape, Animal Control brings me back home. They’re really nice. Officer O’Connell is one of my favorites from Animal Control.

But on this day I didn’t stick around long enough to see my friend Officer O’Connell.

The site I chose was particularly good because there was an evergreen tree in front of it that blocked my owners from seeing what I was up to, as well as a non-biodegradable plank that Jane had placed there to keep me from access to the fence, which I easily pushed aside, it having become dislodged during the winter snows.

Though Jane lay chicken wire in lots of places, she omitted one: at the read of our property, under the chain link fence that my owners had installed around the perimeter of their yard. In fact, they had that fence installed just so I would stay on the property and not run off and endanger myself and others. That fence is pretty big and tall just for that reason. It’s just tall enough that I cannot jump over it.

Digging under it, however, is another story.

One sunny morning I found a very nice place in the back where I could dig a long hole that followed along the fence, and then dip down under it, and gradually squeeze my body under it. In between it and our neighbors’ wooden fence is just enough room, a gap of about six inches, for me to squeeze my thin body through.  About 30 feet later I am free.

Bunnies frequently dug their way under this place, so the scent of the bunnies naturally attracted me to it.

The site I chose was particularly good because there was an evergreen tree in front of it that blocked my owners from seeing what I was up to. There was also a non-biodegradable plank that my owner Jane had placed there to keep me from access to the fence, which I easily pushed aside, it having become dislodged during the winter snows.

Here you can see what a good scout I am. The perspective is from the home, where my mom was at the time of my excavation.

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