Why did the Dog Cross the Road

Esther’s writing prompt: June 17 : Cross

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A mini-Australian Shepherd is crossing the street on a crosswalk.
A dog is crossing the road. Created with the help of ChatGPT.

Top Ten Reasons as to why the Dog Crossed the Road

  1. The dog got sick and tired of this side of the street.
  2. The dog wanted to stalk someone on the other side of the road and then not bark at them and get a treat for not barking at people.
  3. Because he wants to chase a cat on the other side of the road.
  4. The dog wanted to smell something on the other side of the road.
  5. A dog is barking at us on the other side of the road, and our dog wants to put him in his place.
  6. There was a scary noise on this side of the road.
  7. Someone the dog knows and love is on the other side of the road.
  8. The dog has to cross the road to get to grandma and grandpas house.
  9. Because someone said let’s cross. Note: our dog Rollo knows the word “cross” very well.
  10. Because someone accidentally said the word “cross”, for example, “After graduating from college, I found myself at the crossroads”. Now we all have to cross the road.

About number 2. Our dog Rollo loves getting close to people and not bark because he knows he will get a treat if he does not bark at people. So sometimes it appears that he wants to stalk people to get a treat. He even spots people half a mile away. However, we do not actually stalk people.

A mini-Australian Shepherd is lying on his side as in front of Bronco as if he wants a belly rub.
Our mini-Australian Shepherd with our Leonberger Bronco who was old at the time.
Rollo is biting a large orange volleyball.
Our mini-Australian Shepherd Rollo rolling a ball.

The danger of dogs crossing the Road

Our dog Rollo loves to cross the street when we are out walking, and we cross the street many times during our walks. He knows the word “cross” because we have taught him this word so that he understands that crossing a street back and forth is a special action that he needs to pay special attention to. We want him to know that when crossing the street, you have to be careful. Ideally, we would like for him to look both ways before he crosses a street, but we are working on this. We have had a bad experience with dogs crossing roads.

WARNING: the paragraphs below are very sad, so if you are sensitive, please skip to “My Other Responses to Esther’s Prompts”.

Close up photo of Baylor’s face.
Our Yellow Labrador Baylor

In December of 2008, we were planning a one-week trip. Baylor our yellow Labrador was maybe twelve years old at this point, and Bronco our Leonberger dog was a year and a half. We also had Baby our German Shepherd and Ryu our Japanese Chin. We needed someone to watch our four dogs while we were gone. Following a recommendation from our veterinarian at the time, we settled for a sitter who would visit the dogs, feed them, and walk them but not stay at our house full-time. This sounded like the best option at the time, but it turned out to be a disaster.

After we left on our trip, we got a phone call from the sitter, who told us that she was taking care of several other dogs in addition to ours and that she did not have time to drive back and forth to our house and attend to our dogs. The fact that she was taking care of several other dogs simultaneously was news to us. She asked if she could take our four dogs to her house. She stated that she had a fence like ours, and by having them at her house she could watch them 100 percent of the time.

We didn’t really like the idea because the dogs had never stayed at someone else’s house before. Moreover, we had never seen her house, and we had no idea how crowded it was with the other dogs there. But it sounded like the best solution under the circumstances, so we reluctantly agreed.

A couple of days later, the dog sitter called us again, but this time she told us that Baylor was missing. He had been barking at night, so she put him out in the backyard. Unfortunately, the gate at her place had been left open, and she didn’t notice that Baylor was gone until early in the morning. She asked us what we thought she should do.

We told her that she had to find him. “Go look for him; put up posters,” we said. She was reluctant to do any of that because she didn’t want to leave the other dogs alone. We told her that it was an emergency and she had to do it. We suggested that she recruit other people to help her. Baylor had to be found.

We were pretty upset about the fact that the sitter had put Baylor out into the backyard in the middle of a cold night and left him there. However, we needed her help, so we kept calm. We enlisted help from family members in Dallas, and I used an online service called My Lost Pet Alert, which sent 2,264 emails to people in our neighborhood that night. It didn’t help that it was cold and sleeting and the streets were icy and dark. Baylor also needed his insulin shot in the morning.

The following afternoon Baylor was found dead two miles from the dog sitter’s place. He had been hit by a car. He was found around midway between her house and our house, so it seemed like he was trying to get home.

Baylor had a very special place in our hearts, and I was devastated. My wife Claudia was crying, and the kids were crying. Not only had we lost a family member in a sudden cruel twist of fate, but his death was also likely an unpleasant one. That it was the result of a dog sitter’s carelessness didn’t make it any better. In fact, it made it worse. It is a traumatic event that none of has yet gotten over.

Baylor crossing the rainbow bridge and it says “you were our favorite Hello and our hardest Goodbye”.
Illustration by Naomi Rosenblatt.

My Other Responses to Esther’s Prompts

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Author: thomasstigwikman

My name is Thomas Wikman. I am a software/robotics engineer with a background in physics. I am currently retired. I took early retirement. I am a dog lover, and especially a Leonberger lover, a home brewer, craft beer enthusiast, I’m learning French, and I am an avid reader. I live in Dallas, Texas, but I am originally from Sweden. I am married to Claudia, and we have three children. I have two blogs. The first feature the crazy adventures of our Leonberger Le Bronco von der Löwenhöhle as well as information on Leonbergers. The second blog, superfactful, feature information and facts I think are very interesting. With this blog I would like to create a list of facts that are accepted as true among the experts of the field and yet disputed amongst the public or highly surprising. These facts are special and in lieu of a better word I call them super-facts.

2 thoughts on “Why did the Dog Cross the Road”

  1. I’ve been in both situations. One was losing our dog when he had taken off after a bitch in heat and he got run over by a car. The other was trusting someone to housesit and coming back to find they had left the province to run after her boyfriend without letting us know she was leaving us in a lurch.

    Hard lessons for us.

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  2. This is absolutely heartbreaking. No animal should ever have to die this way, and no family should have to go through such a tragedy. My thoughts are with you and your family. Rest in peace, Baylor.

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