Our Dog Was Hit By A Car

Want to know what the worst day ever is like? It started when I got up at 7am to get ready for work and immediately felt ill. Within a few minutes I was in the shower and then out vomiting. Yes, vomiting! What I thought was the second stomach virus I have had in three weeks (which turned out to be the flu). I decide I just can not make it in to work so I call in sick.

My sweet husband takes the kids to vacation bible school and the little man to daycare and I head back to bed. I wake back up around 11am feeling worse than I did when I first woke up. Back to the bathroom throwing up again. Too much information... yes I know. It went from nice and sunny outside to absolutely flooding in a matter of minutes. Our Rottweiler Harley is outside underneath our carport on his chain. All of a sudden I hear a loud BANG and a horrible YELP from Harley and the lights in my house flicker. The first thing I thought was OMG, Harley has been struck by lightning.

I rush outside to find my huge dog walking back and forth, in the rain acting completely disoriented. He had completely left from underneath the carport. So I unhook him, bring him inside and dry him off with a towel. He then proceeds to jump into my bed (still rather wet but I didn't have the heart to tell him to get off) and cuddles with me for most of the afternoon.

I decide that since I feel like absolute death I will soak in the bath. I turn on the water, get in the tub and within about 5 minutes the water just stops, completely stops. WTH? So I call my husband and he comes home to attempt to fix it before its dark outside. We are not connected to city water, we have a well. The first thing we think is that it is probably the pump and that it was struck by lightening earlier when I heard the loud bang. After a few minutes we realize that it probably just tripped the breaker. We come inside to our breaker box and could not find the breaker for the pump. UGH!

We go outside, circle the house a bit and finally realize it is connected to a breaker box outside. Sure enough, the breaker was tripped. My husband flips it back over and the water is working again! Thank God!   We live out in what I would call "semi-country". The old house beside us is empty and the land across from us is full of cows but I am like 5 minutes away from a Wal-Mart and 15 minutes away from a decent sized mall. Anyway... the point I am trying to get at is we don't have a fenced in yard. So, we don't let Harley roam around outside unless we are out there with him.

Well, I guess we both were caught up with trying to fix the water we did not realize he had run up the road a ways until we heard a THUD and a horrible YELP! I looked at my husband and said "Oh my God I think Harley has just been hit by a car!" We jump in the car and speed up the road and sure enough there is our beautiful mischievous dog laying on the side of the road. He could not walk but he just picked up his head and gave us this look like "You came for me!". It was so incredibly heartbreaking.

An older man in a pick up truck stopped to help by husband get Harley on a blanket and in the back of my car. I knew it was bad instantly. He was clearly hurt but he didn't even nip at my husband or the older man when they were trying to pick him up. I kept thinking it was because he was in shock and couldn't feel anything because if he could feel something, it would be pain and when they moved his legs and everything he would have nipped.

When Nick gets in the car he tells me Harley is bleeding from his bottom. I rush to the vet and as they are taking Harley inside my two year old starts crying saying "Harley!". I explain to him that Harley had a boo boo and we were just taking him to the doctor so they could doctor his boo boo. I pull the car out from in front of the entrance while my husband is inside and of course start throwing up in the parking lot of the vet clinic because I had been sick all day! It was so incredibly embarrassing! Especially when the nurse comes out to tell me she hopes I get to feeling better!

Within a few minutes my husband walks out holding Harley's collar. You would think that it would have registered for me at that moment but it didn't. I remember my husband looking at me saying, they said it will be an extra fee if we want them to cremate him. I remember thinking "Why are we talking about this? They are working on him right now? Why are we talking about cremating him? We don't know what is going to happen?" That I guess is when it hit me. Nick came out holding his collar. He didn't make it.

I immediately started crying. I seriously cried like I had lost a family member. I guess he was a family member to me. This dog has absolutely tortured me for the last year. He has eaten my shoes, pulled dresses down from my closet, beheaded stuffed animals... the list really goes on and on. I actually wrote a blog post not too long ago on my personal blog (Confessions of a Busy Mom) joking about giving him away. But it was just that, a joke. The truth is, as mischievous as he was... he was our dog. He was Collin's first dog and Collin absolutely loved him. I bet you Collin has asked me about Harley's boo boo two dozen times since last night. He keeps grabbing my hand to go outside because in his little mind he thinks that it is time to let Harley back in. I don't even know how to begin to explain to him that Harley is never coming back in.