The first time I hit a dog he ran off with a limp. The next dog went under the car and died instantly.
The most memorable one was hitting an already dead dog though. My brother and I were driving his Honda on a divided freeway in the middle of nowhere AZ. It was early in the morning and the traffic was very light. We are going about 75. I’m looking at the map, my brother is driving. Pretty soon he’s looking at the map too (we were on an air museum tour and trying to locate the next one). After looking at the map for quite awhile, he looks up and exclaims, “Oh $%!”. He takes his foot off the gas as I look up and see a big dead Saint Bernard lying sideways across our lane, less than a second from impact, no time to evade. WHAM! The car, with pretty much no clearance, lurches back and up. My brother gets back on the gas (I think he was instinctively afraid of being rear-ended since he had no situational awareness after studying the map). The car is riding high and making a horrible rubbing sound. I turn around and look back; no doggy in the road. My brother is still cursing. I tell him that I don’t see the dog; he’s still under the car. My brother stays on the gas. After maybe five or ten seconds the car pops up a foot again as the rubbing sound stops. I’m still looking back; there’s Beethoven doing somersaults down the freeway at 65 mph. At the next exit we pulled over and accessed the damage: front air dam – mashed, exhaust – mashed, fuel tank – mashed – about two or three gallons less capacity now.
I can’t help but to wonder: if the tank had been full would it have held tight and not been beat in or would it have ruptured and spewed gas everywhere. Could you imagine the 911 call, “Yea, that’s right, there’s a fire on the freeway half a mile long with a burning dog at one end and a burning Honda at the other”.
