To folks who drive with loose dogs on the back bed of pickup trucks: Please stop. Crate them or keep them inside. One-hundred-thousand dogs are killed annually because they jump or fall off the back.
Just recently, we were driving north on Rt. 101 in Atascadero behind a pick-up with a loose dog in the back bed. My husband and I had a bad feeling about it, so we dropped back a few cars and to the right lane.
A couple minutes later, the dog came off the truck as it was traveling 70 mph in the left lane. I don’t know if another car hit him or if he bounced. Traffic came to a halt. A man, a few cars back, stopped to hold the dog until the dog’s guardian could walk back to get him. He carried this poor injured soul back to the truck.
We don’t know if the dog survived or how injured he was. What we do know is this causes a lot of pain all around. Besides, it’s illegal in California to have a loose dog on the back of a pickup truck. We see this all the time.
Police, how about enforcing this law? Roads would be safer, and it would save pain and heartache for the dog, the dog’s guardian, and any other driver who might hit the dog. You might even save a life.
This article appears in Nov 3-9, 2011.