Why It's Wrong To Be Left Like a Dog for Dead

by Courtney Mroch | More from this Blogger

06 Jun 2008 03:54 PM

Have you seen the video footage of the hit and run that happened in Hartford, Connecticut? A 78-year-old man was crossing the street, got hit by a car, spirals in an awful display of flying legs and arms to the ground, and the car speeds away.

That's bad enough. But other cars kept going past. People walked by. Some stopped and looked but no one rushed to his aid. It's not until a police cruiser that's just happening to go by on his way to another call stopped that the man got help.

I saw the story as I ate lunch with my mom and we watched the noon news. Then I saw the headline on my Sony/AOL homepage about it: "Like a Dog They Left Him."

Earlier this morning on the way back from yet another one of my mom's doctor appointments, I saw the remains of a smooshed something that was once either dog or cat. (It was definitely domestic in origin whatever it was. Not the wildlife roadside fare like a skunk, squirrel, or opossum we also commonly see.)

Like it does every time I see a dead animal, it made me sad. But ever since I stopped to pick up Tabby, it makes me even sadder.

Now every time I drive by a cat or dog carcass I think, "What if no one got to know that soul? What if I hadn't stopped for Tabby? What if I hadn't gotten to know hers? Or the remarkable being she is? And who could have guessed what a true blessing she would be to her Grandma Dorothy just one year later?"

It kills me to think how close I'd come to not knowing her. Thankfully I do.

That's maybe why it infuriated me so much to see the headline about the man being "left like a dog for dead." That implies if it had been a dog, hitting and running is okay.

I've never thought that was okay. I think it's borderline uncivilized that we don't do just the opposite -stop and help instead of driving away with a shrug.

Life --ALL life-- deserves more respect than that. I don't care if it's a wild animal or a person. We all have souls, dreams, stories about who we are and where we come from. We deserve better than to show no regard or compassion, as is the rule not the exception currently.

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Learn more about Courtney Mroch

Courtney Mroch is a wife, a proud pet parent, and a writer. She's been with her husband, high school sweetheart Wayne Pryor, over 20 years, married 11 of those. She's "mom" to Mr. Meow, a.k.

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Aimee Amodio (12040) 06 Jun 2008 05:10 PM

I agree 100%. All life deserves respect. (This is why I catch spiders and release them outside...)

Courtney Mroch (9169) 09 Jun 2008 03:47 AM

OMG, Amee! I do the same thing with spiders too! It drives Wayne nuts because I'll scream, "NO! Don't kill it. It's bad luck to kill a spider in a house. We have to catch him and put him outside." So funny! it's crazy all the stuff you and I have in common....not killing spiders, naming inanimate objects, agreeing about the whole cloning pets thing... ;)