[fastfredracing]

I get home from work, split wood till dark, then start cooking dinner. That is always the kiss of death. I get called out on a quick local tow . Poor girl ran over a curb at the VA hospital, and flattened all four of her 20 " tires .
It was basically a 3 mile tow to Wal Mart.

Heading home my oldest son starts pounding my phone . I didn't answer, because I was only about 5 minutes from home, and I don't like to talk on the phone in the big truck .
200 yards from my house, I see a set of eyes light up in my headlights, and I just barely made out his face right before he went under my tow truck . Its about 10 pm, and he is a dark brown dog.
Im pretty sure I jumped out of my truck still moving, because it was sitting with the bumper against one of the trees in my yard , still in gear . I do not even remember that part .
I do know, that I let out a shriek that I have never heard my body make .

I couldnt find him at first , but then saw his body right in the middle of the road. I was completely expecting to find him dead . 18,500 pounds just rolled directly over him , dead center at 40 mph .

I came upon him to find him still breathing and holding his head up . He was bleeding from his mouth and nose, and I could see some cuts and gashes on his head and hind quarter .
Im no emergency responder, but something took over . I sat in the middle of the road holding my phone light so passing cars would not run us both over, and just more or less was evaluating his condition . I could not feel any broken bones, and could not see any damage to his mid section, his breathing seemed fast , but fairly normal . He as slightly responding to me, but he was definitely struggling to hold on.

I have never felt emotions as heightened as I was at this moment . I screamed for my oldest to bring us beach towels ( we had just gotten back from the OBX) so they were folded and clean on the couch .
I just wanted to get Zeke onto a large towell, and try to drag him off the road, so we could all be safe, then I could run home to load him in my car .

My oldest was helping me . He is 19 and autistic . If I say that our doggie is the fabric that holds our dysfunctional little family together, that is an understatement .
My oldest, and my 8 year old son, love that dog. THe oldest autistic boy was starting to come unglued at the site of his dog sitting there dying . I just had to keep trying to coach him and do the task at hand
To our surprise, when we tried to slide the beach towel under him, he jumped up and walked off to the side of the road all by himself . He sat there , leaning against my leg for at least 3 or 4 minutes and as much as we tried to calm him and tell him to sit or lay down, he just wanted to lean against me .

I ran back to my house about 200 yards away , shut off my tow truck still sitting against the tree running, got my car , and shot back down to the scene
Hands down, Zeke's favorite thing on the Planet is to go for rides . Just saying the words " go for a ride " or often we joke with him and say things that rhyme with that sentence like " Joe needs a bride ?" he perks up , grabs his leash off the hanger and waits at the front door . I opened the back door and said " hey buddy, wanna go for a ride ? to the shop ? " and he climbed into my car on his own . This moment gave a decent chance to look over his legs, head, neck , hips, ribs etc. I could not find anything broken , no real serious cuts or gashes , or any other fatal looking damage .

Its about a 40 minute ride to the animal hospital for us . My current stomper car is a 2018 Civic Si . I autocrossed that entire drive . Ran every red light ( cautiously ) , and think I may have found the top speed of that car on the interstate .
At one point while we were driving there, his breathing became gurgled and labored . I was really worried about punctured lungs on internal damage, and thought he was going to pass right there .
We made it there, and with some coaching we got him out of the car and he walked in the ER under his own power .

It as at least a 3 + hour wait till the doctor came out to give us the news, and we were all bracing for the worst .

That big brown meathead is going to be fine !!!

No broken bones, his lungs are fine and as far as they can tell, no real damage to his internal organs . He did have some fluid build up last night, but just talking to them this morning , they said he is basically fine . They want to keep him till at least tonight , or at the latest l tomorrow , but Zeek, is coming home !!!
We are not bad pet owners, Zeek is an absolute Jedi Master at escaping and he was wanderlust . If there is even the slightest security breach anywhere, Zeek will find it .
We have a ton of deer in our yard EVERY day this time of year , and there has been a bear in our , and our neighbors back yard several times over the last few weeks My oldest son, was putting Zeek out on his run, and Zeek must have caught the scent of something , because he pulled right out of my sons hand, and made a break for the woods . I have pretty strong mechanic hands, zeek easily can rip himself from my grip when he gets that urge. Fortunatly, there is not a mean bone in his body , and all our neighbors know zeek. Whenever he gets away, we always just jump in the car ride down the road, and usually as soon as he spots our car, he runs right up and jumps in .

EVERY time he runs away , I have that unsettling feeling in my gut that I am going to find him on the side of the road , hit by a car . I never imagined that it would have been me to have done it .
Ive lost a lot in my life already . Im finally at an ok spot in my own head once again, which took some time and work.
I don't think I would have mentally survived this loss and having done it myself may have put me over the edge . Sitting in the waiting room last night I started to go to a pretty dark place
Im not really religious, but still very spiritual , and today Im thankful and have been really doing some deep thinking and reflecting

Sorry for the super long post, and as always, thanks for listening .

I am going to have to hustle a lot of tows to pay his 6k hospital bill, but I think I will look into an electric fence, or some way to keep this from ever happening again .
We have 3 acres, if you guys have any suggestions , I am all ears . He has been a really good dog. He is just a stubborn 100 pound lab and likes to run .
When the doc came out last night to tell me he was o.k. I made a comment about him being a big meathead, and the doc agreed, that he is indeed a " big friendly meathead "
Ill share some pics upon his return .

Baz , you were the first guy I though of making this post. I hope you will forgive me ..