Most dogs that get hit on a trip are hit within sight of the car – on a shoulder, in a parking lot, at a rest area off the interstate. What you do in the next few minutes matters, and so does one thing you should have done already: knowing where the nearest 24-hour animal hospital is. In a lot of Florida, it is not close.
First: your own safety
If it happened on a road, get yourself visible before anything else. Hazards on, stand behind the car, and if you are on an interstate shoulder or a dark two-lane, call 911 first. A second crash while someone kneels in a travel lane is a real risk. Florida’s rural highways are fast, and US 1, US 98, US 27 and the two-lane roads through farm country all carry trucks at 60 miles an hour.
Moving an injured dog
A dog in pain bites – including yours, including the gentlest dog you have ever owned. It is not aggression, it is reflex.
- Restrain the head if the dog is conscious and breathing normally. A leash slipped around the muzzle, a strip of shirt, anything. Never muzzle a dog that is struggling to breathe, vomiting, or has a chest or mouth injury.
- Keep the spine straight. Slide the dog onto something flat – a floor mat, a piece of cardboard, a beach towel held taut at both ends – rather than picking it up under the belly.
- Cover any wound with clean cloth and press gently for bleeding. Do not pull out anything embedded.
- Keep it warm and quiet. Shock does as much damage as the impact. No food, no water.
Call the vet before you drive
Two reasons. They tell you whether to come in and what to do on the way, and they can be ready when you pull up. Have this ready to say: what hit the dog and how fast, whether it lost consciousness, whether it is walking, the color of the gums, and roughly how far out you are.
Pale or white gums, breathing that is fast and shallow, a belly that looks swollen, or a dog that cannot stand are all reasons to drive straight there and let them know you are coming.
A dog can look fine and not be
This is the part that costs dogs their lives. A dog clipped by a car often gets up, shakes off and walks to the car looking embarrassed. Internal bleeding, a bruised lung and a torn diaphragm all take hours to show. Any dog that has been hit should be seen the same day, even if it is trotting around.
Know the gap before you need it
Florida has excellent 24-hour animal hospitals in its metro areas, and long stretches with none. In the Florida Keys, no official source confirms a staffed overnight hospital anywhere in the island chain – the nearest are in Miami-Dade, up to four hours from Key West. In Columbia County, where I-75 meets I-10, the nearest 24-hour option is the University of Florida hospital in Gainesville. Even in St. Johns County the round-the-clock hospitals are in Jacksonville.
Our county pet help pages list the emergency and after-hours vets for each county we have covered, with hours, because “24/7” on a clinic’s website often means an answering service.
Paying for it
Emergency hospitals generally want payment at the time of treatment, and a serious trauma case runs into thousands. Ask about an estimate up front, ask whether they take CareCredit or a similar plan, and if you have pet insurance, call the insurer from the waiting room – some reimburse faster with a claim opened the same day.
If you hit a dog that is not yours
Do not drive off. Get the dog off the road if it is safe, call the county’s animal services or the sheriff’s non-emergency line, and stay until someone comes if you can. The owner is usually within a mile. If the dog has a tag, call the number on it. The shelter and animal services listings on each of our county pages are the fastest way to reach the people who handle this.
Carry these
- A pet first-aid kit: gauze, self-adhesive wrap, saline, tweezers, gloves.
- An old beach towel – blanket, stretcher and pressure bandage in one.
- Your vet’s number and your dog’s records on your phone, including its rabies certificate.