My husband hit a dog (with his car)

He couldn't avoid it, it jumped in front of him. The dog was a large shepherd/husky mix it looked like. She wasn't killed, but was hobbling on 3 legs after he hit her. She then laid on the ground, and I carefully approached her.

After I determined that she wasn't going to attack me, I checked her tag. It had a phone number and address on it. Meanwhile, hubby was calling the police. We called the phone number on the tag, but there was just an answering machine. Hubby left a message that the dog had been hit, but didn't admit it was us.

The police arrived and said they had already driven by the address on the tag, and no one was home. So the police man took the dog (I coaxed her into the back of the squad car) to the emergency animal clinic.

Later that night, the owner called us back. She had locked her two dogs in her garage, and had no idea how they had gotten loose. (They were sixteen blocks from home when the one got hit). She had just picked up the injured dog from the animal clinic and was wondering where the other one was.

We had captured the other one at the time of the accident and another police officer picked that one up as well and said he was going to take it down to the station, so hubby advised her to contact the police. We never heard back from her again.

I feel bad about what happened, but I don't know what else we could have done.
What do you guys think?
Part of me wants to call her again and ask how the dog is recovering and if she ever got the other dog back, but I don't want to start trouble, either.

A friend of mine, unfortunately hit a dog with a collar but no tag last year, out in the middle of nowhere. She was so shook up, she didn't know who to contact, as it was killed on impact. She wrestled with that one for a long time, what else could she have done?

We were both ranting about irresponsible people who let their pets run wild and then expect nothing to happen.

I guess I would let sleeping dogs lie. At least this one stands a chance thanks to your actions. What do you want to make a bet that the owner never locked the dogs in the garage? I suppose the dogs are so super smart they know how to open doors?

Both the dogs had tags with contact info on them and were well fed and groomed. I also have to assume that they are indoor dogs because they had NO CLUE whatsoever about cars.

And when she called my husband back she was really shaken up and said she couldn't understand how it had happened.

Hubby and I were speculating that if she had an automatic garage door opener that maybe someone with the same frequency could have activated the door unintentionally.
:shrug:

Unfortunately, sometimes we learn through accidents and near tragedies.

We have four dogs who stay in a fenced yard and the house via a doggy door. When they're outside of the yard, they're on leashes. However, the biggest dog, Sparky, always looks for an opportunity to escape and sometimes he gets out -- usually when a guest walks through the door and just leaves it open -- I mean, literally walks away and leaves the door wide open. (I've never understood that, whether one is thinking about dogs and cats or not!) We've learned not to chase Sparky down because he just runs further and faster. It's a game to him! So we just have to wait him out -- he comes home more quickly if it's close to dinner time. I think the longest he has been gone is about 20 minutes. Fortunately, we live out in the country on a very lightly traveled road and he seems aware of cars.

If anyone knows of a good way to train dogs not to try to escape, I'm all ears!

But if I were you, I would want to know how the dog is doing. I would call her. I don't think you would be starting trouble by being concerned about the dogs.

and see what happened to the other dog. That would give you an idea of how she handled getting the animal (if she did) without possibly putting yourself in the middle of something you don't want.

the majority of the scum of this earth would have just kept driving.