Bad day today

We use anything up to half a dozen dogs, almost every day, to help handle cattle.
When it comes to cattle work, one talented dog can easily be more help than a couple of dumb humans, so we value them accordingly.
Unfortunately, it is impossible to keep them all under perfect control all the time and accidents do happen.
On another occasion, a dog ran under a one tonne farm ute that was passing slowly by.
I could see the vehicle visibly bounce twice as both axles went over him and feared the worst.
Amazingly, he got up with no ill effects other than a complete and permanent loss of control over his tail.

Nobody wants to run over critters. There was a down dog that'd been stomped by a bull when he was a pup, big cloven cleft in his noggin, he'd spend the day barking at and chasing away all the invisible demons, dutifully protecting the town from the unseen menaces!

Wonder if it’s legal to pepper spray dogs that chase vehicles¿ There is one that chases my car damn near hit few times and thought about it, maybe the owner gets a taste too and puts a fence up or leash.

I knew a guy that would time his driving and hit them by opening the door...sounds mean but I suppose maybe they would learn after that without going under the tires. A little extreme for my taste.

Birken Vogt said:

I knew a guy that would time his driving and hit them by opening the door...sounds mean but I suppose maybe they would learn after that without going under the tires. A little extreme for my taste.

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I tried that, only worked for couple days and they are right back at it.

Friend of mine carries paint loaded balloons for those that he knows are chasers, they learned his truck really quick.

Same turd carries pennies in his cup holder on his car and pickup for tailgaters. Will chuck them out thru moon roof or toss up out the side window at speed.

I was out inspecting bridges one day in November. It started to snow lightly so I pulled the plug and was headed back to the office. I was probably doing 40 out in the boonies, had the road all to myself. As I pass this small house set back from the road I see Fido heading for me at warp speed. He runs right in front of me, I hear the thump thump, look in the rear view and he's sliding off the road into the ditch - dead as can be.
Crap, I'm in a gov't car and just killed a dog. So I turn around and go up to the house. It's pretty run down and there's the kids toys in the yard. I repeatedly knock on the door. No answer. The lady of the house finally just cracks the door. "I'm sorry ma'am but I just hit and killed your dog". She says "serves him right" and shut the door.
I'll try to slow down if I can but refuse to swerve or lock up the brakes. I've gotten 3 dogs and numerous squirrels in my 53 years of driving. Knock on plastic, I haven't had an encounter with a deer yet. I did get a Canadian goose one evening at dusk. Hit the windshield in the center at the top. Closed my eyes, heard it hit, opened my eyes and the window was completely shattered but still in the frame. I wear gasses fortunately but I had the glass crumbles everywhere.

When I hit that dog, and a couple other incidents that concerned me, I went back to the office and wrote up a report of exactly what happened as soon as I could and as detailed as I could. Then just saved it for myself, didn't tell anybody or maybe just let somebody know it existed. Probably not a whole lot of use in court but could be useful to a lawyer to prepare a case, I don't know.

Dad hit a deer smack in the middle when I was riding in his car at at least 60 mph. I remember the grille floating past the windshield like smoke in a wind tunnel and the deer being ejected to the center divider. Car was repaired but just a few dollars from totaled.

I hit a turkey myself and it busted my grille. Made me annoyed because I could have done more to avoid it and there might have been no damage. I told an old hillbilly about it and he got in his truck and roared off looking for free dinner. Next time I saw him he said he was not able to find the turkey, was very disappointed.

I’m going to lighten the thread a bit but, I live 35 miles from a small city in middle of nowhere. Twenty-three miles of it is rock road and some clay along with being free range and few blocks of BLM and state lands. Well out here in Montana we have prairie dogs and in this one section of state land is thousands of them and there is this one particular prairie dog who dug a hole in the road.
Some days I see him and some days I don’t. When I see him and he sees me he will run to his hole jump in but not go all the way down, shakes his ass at me and last second plops in the hole below the road. Some days he is in his hole and waits to duck at last second. He dug the hole more and left a mound one day that would be tough to drive over so I packed it back in ran over with car few times to give it a good packing. Little b*****d dug it back out the next day, except not much as before. So far this cat and mouse game has been going on past 2 months. Thought about mounting a GoPro cam on the car. So his other relatives have been doing same without a hole they just run across the road, so far scored one hit on them.
Besides that I aim for the antelope or deer too.

Was drivin toward the first light from the farm, once. spied a ground hog traveling in circles, at the intersection. Traveling in circles means either he's had a head injury, or has distemper, or worse, so I figgered I'd put him outta his misery, eased over a foot or so, lined him up, just right, got him with the steeerin axle, and the dually tires. Flat out dead.

Unfortunately I had a witless witness, behind me. He went around me, honkin and screamin, and stopped in fronta me, on the right, hopped outta his car, and stepped into traffic, to try and stop me, and give me a piece of his lil mind.... so I eased over, a foot or so, and wondered if I could make it a twofer mornin... He ended up jumpin onta his hood, at the last second, unfortunately

Squirrels are the hardest to avoid because of their indecision. They dart back and forth so you aren't sure where they're going. One time I was riding a motorcycle with girlfriend on the back down a central Texas back road. The squirrel kept changing direction and sure enough I heard a pop and flattened his head. I was worried GF wouldn't love me that night (did anyway).

As the old saying goes, "The road of indecision is paved with flat squirrels".

I flattened a squirrel on my commercial drive test. Winding country road. I held the lane and maintained speed just like the book said. Examiner saw it and said nothing, we continued on and passed.

Critter in the road, bad choice in front of me, I will NOT dart nor dive to avoid except Turtles. We have box tortoises here, I will often stop on the county road, four ways on and pick the little turds up shuffle them off to the shoulder.

I remember riding in the logging truck with dad years ago. On our way out to a buddy's place to get some welding done on the trailer. We're motoring down a rural road when I see something in the middle of the road maybe a quarter kilometer ahead of us. About a second or two later I open my mouth to say "dad is that a dog on the road?" Got about 2 words out when suddenly dad hammers the brake pedal. All 8 drives lock up and I just about bounce my head off the dash. Freakin' Golden Retriever was lying right in the middle of the road and he almost blended in perfectly with the pavement. He casually wandered off to the side while the two of us just about had a heart attack as we flew past that damn dog.

Three things that relate to all y'alls stories...

My neighbor unintentionally ran over a turtle backing out of his spot a couple days ago, said it was coming from my pond, and it probably was. Turtle didn't make it. Very sad. On another turtle note, in Dayton, Ohio we have the Great Miami River that runs right through the middle of the city and one of the streets that runs along side, near the University of Dayton campus is S. Patterson. Well, whomever designed and built that road did a poor job of considering that turtles may climb up the flood wall, and into the road that had 4 or 5 inch tall curbs on either side. I haven't seen it lately but for a while it was really difficult to avoid either the turtles or their carcasses, since they were trapped in the roadway.

I also have an ex-uncle-in-law who is a cop. He was called to an accident on 35, a local highway that splits the city north and south. Upon pulling up to the scene he saw the completely smashed in window, from a car that a goose had flown into and through. So, the goose hits the windshield (Geo Tracker if I'm remembering correctly), goes through it, and proceeds to thrash around like mad, inside the car! I think it eventually got out and lived, again, if I'm remembering correctly.

Let's lighten things up a bit:
Rumour has it the squirrel laughed and bounded away unharmed.

DMiller said:

Critter in the road, bad choice in front of me, I will NOT dart nor dive to avoid except Turtles. We have box tortoises here, I will often stop on the county road, four ways on and pick the little turds up shuffle them off to the shoulder.

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How timely is this one! Just got back from a ride to lunch with the wife, me on Sportster and her on Vespa we both have intercoms so we point out road kill and other things to each other. Maybe a mile from home on a local back road, right in the center of the road is a turtle about 5 to 6 inches across. I say "Watch-out! Turtle crossing!" She was a little further back so she had time to slow down and make a u-turn.

When she got close to turtle she said it was running, well as much as a turtle can! Then by the time I got there he decided best thing was to hide in his shell. So as there was a car coming I parked the Sporty and walked over and picked him(her?) up by the side of the shell with my riding gloves still on just on the chance it decided I was not there to help!

Set it well off road with nose facing nice tall weeds and left him there.

DMiller said:

Critter in the road, bad choice in front of me, I will NOT dart nor dive to avoid except Turtles. We have box tortoises here, I will often stop on the county road, four ways on and pick the little turds up shuffle them off to the shoulder.

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kshansen said:

How timely is this one! Just got back from a ride to lunch with the wife, me on Sportster and her on Vespa we both have intercoms so we point out road kill and other things to each other. Maybe a mile from home on a local back road, right in the center of the road is a turtle about 5 to 6 inches across. I say "Watch-out! Turtle crossing!" She was a little further back so she had time to slow down and make a u-turn.

When she got close to turtle she said it was running, well as much as a turtle can! Then by the time I got there he decided best thing was to hide in his shell. So as there was a car coming I parked the Sporty and walked over and picked him(her?) up by the side of the shell with my riding gloves still on just on the chance it decided I was not there to help!

Set it well off road with nose facing nice tall weeds and left him there.

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Dmiller you need a hockey stick for them, you sure could get a few goalies in lol...
As for being on a Sportster I use to own one and happen up on turtle while out riding, slowed it down to about 20 mph lined my foot up on it and gave it a good kick. Bet that was the fastest that turtle ever crossed the road hehe

Turtles, dogs, cats, snakes, I brake for'em. Turtles I will herd twards a wet spot. Don't give a damn about most anything else. THis thread reminds me of the old riddle:

Why dif the chicken cross the road?







To show the possum, that it COULD be done!

AND:

)

I pepper sprayed my dog by accident once, was testing a can and shot out a good fog and my pup came zooming around the corner, right into the airborn stream and fog, he sneezed and kept right on running to wherever he was going before getting sprayed. He didn't seem to care after a dozen sneezes.

Spud_Monkey said:

Wonder if it’s legal to pepper spray dogs that chase vehicles¿ There is one that chases my car damn near hit few times and thought about it, maybe the owner gets a taste too and puts a fence up or leash.

Click to expand...