Frailty and strength of life

[krd1979]

When someone tells you that their dog was hit by a car you usually assume the worst and that animal is now deceased. Well, the day before yesterday my dog Callaway was hit by a car, it was about 3:50pm on Wednesday afternoon and I had gotten off work early because I was in a training class for the telephone systems that day in the Inter-Tel building over at Mill Run. When the class ended I was thrilled to have the afternoon off, especially since I didn't have to work at Best Buy that night. I was going to have a "night with the boys". I got home and the new German Shepherd puppy had gotten out of his box and left brown piles and yellow puddles on the brick floor in the sunroom, some on the papers that were laid down and others not so much. This was expected however, and I cleaned up the messes and was planning how I would fix the fence where we thought Callaway had been getting out of the yard. In order to figure out how he got out I went ahead and took him of his chain where we had him tied in the middle of the back yard. He ran freely and excitedly about the yard and didn't seem at all interested in excaping so I went back to the puppy to put him back in his box and continue with his crate training. Then, as quickly as I turned away Callaway shot across the yard and up the woodpile next to the fence. I saw him out of the corner of my eye and scrambled out of the sunroom and reached to pull him back over just as he lept to the other side of the fence. I knew this was bad, but he had escaped at least three times before so I was just upset that I would be running across the neighborhood to catch him... so I jumped the fence after him and sprinted in his direction. Not the greatest sprinter anyways I had no chance against Cal, a lean pointer terrier mixed breed, and able to run at least 20mph I was sure to lose sight of him unless I outsmarted him first. As he ran I noticed he would glance back at me every couple of seconds to make sure I was still following so I tried to get out of his line of sight so he would maybe stop and turn around if he thought I'd quit chasing. This wasn't working and he soon got beyond MY vision and I stopped following in hopes that he would come back on his own. I waited for a little bit and my next thought was to get back to the house and get his leash so I made a break for the house and was racing in my mind what I was going to do and what if I couldn't catch him and felt that cold sweat panic and my heart was jumping. Leash in hand I took off in the direction he orginally went and considered taking the car in case he'd gotten really far away, but I quickly rejected that because of lack of manuverability so I flew down the sidewalk on foot and passed a couple of town locals talking on their front porch and one of the guys yelled to me that he saw a dog following a guy on a bicycle going in the other direction on the main road through town. I was just imagining him getting out of town, running through the cemetary on the edge of town or even worse if he got to route 23, a major highway into Columbus. I was franticly looking around running as fast as I could and then I heard him and tried to manuver in a direction that would have him coming towards me. Then, suddenly there he was trotting into the "cat lady's" yard which was just two blocks from our house. I tried to act calm and coax him into coming towards me and as he chased one of her cats in the side yard I narrowly missed him and was once again back to the chase. Then I saw it happen, not even ten feet in front of me Callaway was right in the middle of the main road and a pickup truck came over a hill into town and hit him head on. I heard him yelp and saw his collar fly off of him and on to the pavement, I was still running and screaming at the top of my voice. I thought there was no way he was alive and I ran up to his shaking body laying in the street with a puddle of his own urine under him and so much blood. I would be lying if I said I wasn't at all queazey about the sight of blood but right then I ran up to him and took him up in my arms, I could see his chest still rising and him looking at me as the blood gushed from his mouth. I ran up to the elderly man driving the truck as he had stopped just a few feet ahead of my dog, he had a wide eyed shocked look on his face and I could tell how bad he felt, yet he really didn't know what to do or say. I banged on his passenger side window with the knuckle of my left hand as I held Callaway in my arms and I asked if he could give us a ride. I could immediately tell that he didn't want to, but I didn't care, I took Cal and set him gently in the bed of the truck and I opened the passenger door and asked if he could drive to the nearest vet. The man didn't say anything, but he started driving and seemed extremely hesitant and I was just thinking I had no idea who this mas was and even though he just hit my dog I didn't want to ride with him and then have him strand us somewhere. I told him to drop us off in front of our house and I would take him to the vet myself. I jumped out of the truck as soon as he stopped and scooped up my bloodied, broken dog and carried him to my car as the man drove away. I fortunately had my keys on me and unlocked the doors and popped the back hatch. As I was lifting the hatch however, Callaway started to run away from me again... I screamed at him and ordered him to stop and while part of me was so glad to see him walking I also wondered if he hated me since even in his state he would still run from me. At that moment he did stop though and looked up and me and I could see his right eye was completely blood shot and skin had been scraped from just under his cheek bone. I picked him up and comforted him the best I could, I told him "it was going to be alright" and I opened the back seat this time and loaded him in. I started driving but I honestly didn't know where the vet was so I called Linsey who was at work and I tried to be calm, but couldn't help freaking out and telling her what happened and asked her for directions to the vet. She was completely calm and gave me directions and told me she would call ahead to the vet and then call me back. I looked back at Cal and there was blood all over the back seat and he wasn't wimpering or really making a sound, in fact other than him breathing really fast he didn't act like anything was wrong.

So after two days he is back home and doing well, and in my mind a miracle. The vet said that he had no broken bones and the x-ray showed no internal bleeding or as much as a cracked rib. I am amazed that Cal is still alive and not only alive but acting just like himself. I can't explain why bad things happen or why, when they do, sometimes it's not as bad and you would think it should be... I just thank God that miracles happen and even though bodies are frail, that there is strength beyond mortal reason that can survive what seems unsurvivable.