All Dogs Go To Heaven
I have run over four dogs now in The Philippines while driving my 1998 Isuzu Vehicross. Thank god I haven’t hit one on my 2007 Honda Wave 125.
The first one I hit, I was driving down J.R. Borja Extension, which is a 4-lane road with a curbed but grassy median. Actually, while it is technically a 4-laned road and was designed and intended to be a main conduit of traffic West out of Cagayan de Oro City, the right hand lane is used for parking, and for Jeepney and Motorela pull overs more than it is used for traffic. That is, while there are two lanes in each direction, passing is done on the right-side shoulder-side of the road, and only in-between long stretches of parked cars and the frequently stopped Jeepney loading or unloading passengers. (Actually, one American that had brought his Filipina wife to America told me his wife got six traffic tickets, all for passing on the right, it’s just the way people pass here.)
The first dog I hit was a white long-haired dog. The closest thing I can think of is a Shitzu. This was not a stray. This happened on J.R. Borja Extension also, within 200 meters of where I ran over the two dogs tonight. I was heading towards town and a motorela (a motorcycle with two additional wheels mounted behind the rear wheel to support a passenger cabin) was in the outside lane. I was overtaking and speeding up to pass the Motorela when this little white long-haired toy breed dog jumped over the median and into my inside lane. It froze there, watching the Motorela pass, like it was going to dash for the other side of the road as soon as the Motorela passed. I slammed on the brakes and could hear my Isuzu Vehicross, with its anti-lock breaks making an intermittent screech-screech sound as the tires locked and unlocked under full-brake pedal pressure. I did not even try to steer away from the dog. I kept the Vehicross on a straight steer and she did slow, but not enough to keep from running over the dog. To me it felt like the dog hit the front differential, I didn’t run over it with my tires. I slowed and made a U-turn but could not find the dog. Perhaps it survived. But the one thing I will never forget is the two people sitting in the back of the Motorela reacting to me hitting the dog. They laughed.
I remember when I was a kid I used to terrorize ant-hills and swat flies. Kill kill kill. I used to shoot song-birds with my BB gun and thought it was cool. But today I do not step on ants. True, I might set a trap for a mouse here in The Philippines, but other than that I live and let live. My heart dropped to my stomach when I ran over that little white long-haired toy dog.
I did run over one dog since then, but I don’t really remember all the details, mainly because I was talking to a passenger when it happened and didn’t really see it, and when I turned around the dog was gone, just like the first one.
Tonight, also on J.R. Borja Extension, I was giving Tom a ride home to Cha-li Beach Resort and we were motoring along at about 40 kph (about 25 mph) when two dog ran across the road at a median opening (where you can make a U-turn). The two dogs were involved with each other, nipping at each other. I thought they were playing, Tom thought they were fighting. Either way, neither of them saw me coming and I did not see them until it was too late. I ran over both of them. When I turned around I found only one of them on the road, obviously dead. There were another ten or so dogs about and I didn’t see any of them even limping, so I suppose the second one got away with minor injuries.
Click on the image to see a 1600×1200 view. Notice the eyeball that was popped out of this dog’s head. While the black hair on the back of the dog seems to indicate that the black face markings may be natural, I would tend to think that the black stripe across the dog’s snout is tire rubber and the dark blood is from a cracked cranium rather than lung blood, which should be a brighter red. The popped out eye-ball is one good indication his head was run over by one of my tires. The body of the carcass shows no impact damage at all, no obviously broken legs or belly trauma.
I thought they dogs were playing when they ran out in front of my Isuzu Vehicross, but Tom thought they were fighting. They were nipping at each other and oblivious to vehicular traffic.
Tom is from St. Louis, Missouri, and told me that in 1904 as part of the World’s Fair a large group of Filipinos settled into a part of St. Louis and quickly ate up all the stray dogs in the Clayton/Tamm neighborhood, which was largely an Irish-American neighborhood, and that’s why the area is today is known as “Dogtown”. There are other theories, which, Tom, and proud Irish-American with whom I have karaoked “Oh Danny Boy” to the delight of many Filipinos, disputes, such as the theory that coal-minor squatters had a lot of dogs to protect their ram-shackle homes while they were working the mines. To the contrary, it is known as “Dogtown” because all the dogs disappeared due to Filipinos settling in the area during the 1904 World’s Fair.