I was speaking with a good friend and fellow animal lover recently and we found another common ground: it is extremely distressing to both of us to see little dogs wandering carefree by the side of the road unattended and completely vulnerable to the automobiles careening around our winding roadways.
“I have to look the other way and tell myself I just can’t save every little dog by the side of the road,” she said, touching one of my most exposed nerves.
It hurts every time I see one of these unsuspecting, joyful, little beasts casually grazing, or busily making his way to his next doggie appointment, oblivious to death spinning mere inches away.

In our former neighborhood lived a funny, personality-laden Lhasa Apso who I will call Butch. Butch and our dogs were good pals as they met almost every morning at the corner of our street when our three were being walked – on leashes.
Butch was especially fond of Buddy, our oldest. Buddy suffered him aloofly, but did secretly enjoy Butch’s admiring attention.
Every morning, Butch would prance along with our family and, occasionally, silently take off after a passing car. He didn’t bark to alert his prey, which was even more dangerous.
We held our breath. We called him to come away from the car. We talked to his owner.
“Oh, he just bugs me at the door if I don’t let him out,” she told us.
Yeah, so do ours. So, we take them out on a leash.
Just days before we moved from that location a few years ago, our greatest fears were realized. When walking our dogs, my husband suffered the long dreaded experience of finding Butch’s lifeless little body just a few feet from where we met him every morning.
He was three years old as far as we could figure.
Three years old.
I don’t know if his family mourned him. But we still do.
Years ago in Smith Bay a large litter of beautiful blond Labrador-mixed pups were fond of playing and racing alongside, and often on, the road.
Slowly, day after day, all but one was picked off by its steely automobile predators. The one that was left still walks with a limp.
A few months ago after agonizing daily over the four Chihuahuas flocking between their home and Four Corners, I encountered a woman who seemed to know them.
“Are they your dogs,” I asked.

“They belong to my father. He’s got Alzheimer’s.”
I asked if she wanted me to try to find homes for them.
Not really, she said, well maybe, offering the information that there used to be fourteen of them.
Fourteen unwanted dogs wandering helplessly along the side of heavily trafficked road.
Whenever I see a “Lost” sign with a picture of a puppy, I wonder how the puppy got away. Did it open the door and let itself out when its owners weren’t looking?
Or did they open the door and let it out – too unconcerned to walk it on a leash?
Or in the case of the litter in Smith Bay and the fourteen Northside Chihuahuas, are the pet owners just too careless to have the parents neutered or spayed?
I hear about the differences in how people view four-legged beings.
  Our dogs sleep with us, while other people’s sleep outside in dog houses, or live their entire lives on a two-foot chain. All of that is better than leaving them to die -- sometimes slowly suffering -- by the side of the road for others to have to deal with.
I guess in an alternate universe somewhere, people who do that kind of thing become the ignorant two-legged creatures, left by their four-legged masters to fend off gargantuan predators they are not even aware of.
One can only hope