Illustration by Alex Deadman-Wylie
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Driving over the crest of a hill on a country road on a clear day, I came upon something that alarmed me. On the shoulder was a man standing over the inert figure of a large dog. “This won’t be easy,” I said to myself, but I knew I had to stop.
It had been only two weeks since I put down my own six-year-old golden retriever, Lily. She got sick suddenly with a rare canine cancer and was gone in a week. My husband and I were still reeling from the loss. Loving and then losing a dog is such a universal heartbreak for pet owners.
But there I was, walking on the gravel shoulder toward someone else’s heartbreak. I guessed that the man was likely in his late 30s. I wondered if he had ever lost a pet. In my early 60s, I’ve had the experience six times.
He was distraught, with tears in his eyes. He was on the phone talking to a local veterinary practice to try to find help. They told him he would have to take the dog to an emergency vet clinic, over an hour away. Not an ideal plan.
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Once off the phone, he explained to me that the dog wasn’t his but had run out in front of his vehicle and he couldn’t stop in time. I looked at his cargo van and thought how easily the van could have rolled if he had swerved. As I knelt down and looked closely at the dog, a large mixed-breed male, I knew he was likely already gone.
I did my best to comfort the driver. Then I called my son, Mark, a large-animal vet. He had me do a few simple tests on the dog. I looked at the dog’s gums, which were pale. I gently touched the dog’s open eyes looking for any response, but there was none. I felt his chest but was unable to find a heartbeat. We knew then that the dog had died.
Mark spends a lot of time driving in rural areas going to calls on farms. He knows how easily tragedies happen when dogs run loose. He was angry and sad with the loss of this dog. He asked to speak to the driver and gave him reassurances and support. The driver said later that he appreciated Mark’s kindness.
In the meantime, a middle-aged trucker stopped, positioning his large transport truck behind us for added safety. He joined us on the shoulder standing silently and solemnly. Another driver, a young man who lived nearby, pulled over and asked how he could help.
We agreed that we couldn’t leave the dog’s body on the side of the road and had to try to find the owner. The fellow who lived nearby said he might know the owner and quickly drove off to a nearby house.
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Minutes later, he and a distressed woman arrived. I gently told her that her dog hadn’t survived. In tears she said that the dog’s name was Sam. She said Sam loved to chase coyotes at the back of her property but had never gone near the road before. We wondered if a coyote had been attracted to garbage thrown carelessly on the highway, which in turn attracted Sam.
She told us that she was a vet technician and ran a small dog sanctuary. Sam was one of her rescues but was thriving on her rural property. She clearly loved her dogs and was devastated to lose Sam so suddenly, blaming herself for the accident.
The three men gently lifted Sam into the back of her SUV. Through tears, she thanked us over and over, and reassured us that her husband was on his way home to be with her and Sam. They would bury him on their property in a spot where other loved pets had been laid to rest.
After she left, the four of us remained on the side of the road for a moment longer. We quietly shook hands and then hugged each other. All strangers, but brought together by our love of animals, the knowledge that we did the right thing by stopping, and the sad loss of a good boy named Sam.
Jane Jamieson lives in Conestogo, Ont.