How can I not be such a wuss when I see an animal in need?

loveisdivine

Ok, this is a bit of a strange one I know.

I seem to have a problem helping animals that are running loose. I'm a huge animal lover and have no problem trapping local stray cats and getting them vet treatment, or helping any other animal that happens to wander into the garden.

However, when I see for instance a dog, running loose in the street, I seem to panic and freeze up. It's like I get so scared that the dog is gonna get ran over that I just panic.

This morning for instance, on my way into work through Swords I saw a loose dog at a roundabout, I instantly started to panic, but instead of immediately pulling over and trying to catch it, I drove the 30 seconds up the road to the vets and asked them to help me catch the dog. Unfortunately the lady that was there said " I can't catch dogs" and wouldn't help. She said I should just pull over and try and coax it into the car, I explained that there was a lot of traffic and it would be easier if there were a couple of people to watch for cars. She then said I should just call the guards.

For some stupid reason I then just drove to work and tried to get in touch with some local dog rescue places.

I'm so ashamed of myself for not just going down there and trying to catch it myself. Why do I always panic when an animal is on the road? That's when they most need help and I just turn into an idiot. I know a small part of it is that I worry that by trying to approach the animal, I'll scare it into the traffic and make the situation worse.

I believe part of the problem is that about 15 years ago, as I was walking to work a puppy ran out at an intersection and was ran over. There were school children everywhere screaming, the puppy got up and started dashing over to me, but then collapsed. Myself and another lady picked the poor thing up and it died in her arms. The whole thing was very traumatic. It also turned out the dog belonged to one of the children at the nursery I was working at, so I was asked to speak to the owners when they came to collect their child. Obviously it was long time ago, but I still remember the sounds it made, the screaming children, the fluids (won't go into detail). It's really stuck with me all these years.

Obviously this has made me very panicky about this sort of thing. But panicking helps no one.

How can I get over this and be the type of person that immediately stops and does whatever is necessary?

That poor dog this morning could have been injured or worse and I did nothing to help

loveisdivine

So I found a "lost dog" post on facebook that I'm pretty sure is the one I saw this morning. They just posted to say the dog was found ran over near the owners house and died.

I feel so guilty. I could have stopped this but I didn't. I should have at least tried. I have to get over this stupid fear.

quickbeam

I tried to help a loose dog once, but it was so nervous that it ran away from me ONTO the road. It didn't get knocked down, and I let it be, figuring that its own instinct would prevent it running under a car, an instinct that my approach might override in its effort to get away from me.

My point being, sometimes helping can make things worse.

If that was the dog you saw this morning, then it's sad, but think how much more guilty you'd have been if it had got knocked down because you were trying to help it.

Keep helping those stray cats, and do your best. You can't save every animal.

seamus

quickbeam wrote: »

My point being, sometimes helping can make things worse.

And "freezing up" is to a certain extent a logical reaction - because trying to capture an animal loose on a busy road is relatively complicated. You're trying to alert and stop multiple lanes of traffic while also trying to keep an eye on the dog, which moves quickly and erratically.

So your brain sees an emergency, but one that's really complicated to resolve; many people will freeze up in this situation, the scale of what's required is too much to handle. Others will rush in blindly. Lots of people just keep moving and try to forget about it; unable to deal with it.

You end up putting yourself at risk when sometimes just waiting to see how it develops is the better choice.

Your guilt is understandable, but as quickbeam says, if you'd intervened the dog may have met their demise even sooner. And then you'd feel ten times worse.
Or even if you had saved him this time, you wouldn't be there the next time he escapes.

The key here is to try and recognise the situations where you can intervene. If the dog is on the opposite side of a dual carriageway; or even sitting in the grass in the middle, there's very little you can do.

If it's a standard two-lane road, pull in - if it's safe to do so - and breathe. By *not* intervening, you are not changing anything, so you can take 10-15 seconds to just watch, breathe, calm down and come up with a plan. That plan may require a few people - if you pull in, others will too.

If it's not safe to be pulling in - if it's a motorway or a 100km/h single lane national road - then pulling in is not worth it. Instead of a dead dog, you'll also be dead and potentially a family in the car that runs into you.

loveisdivine

Thanks for the advice. In reality, it would have been too dangerous for me to stop on my own yesterday. The roundabout the dog was on has 5 entrances/exits and 2 of them are dual carriageways. That's probably why my first reaction was to try and get help.

But there have been situations before where I could have probably safely helped, but didn't because I was too scared.

I guess I just need to recognize when I can safely help and then just try and be brave and think about the animal, not myself.

loveisdivine

I've just seen as well that some other people tried to catch the dog only a few minutes after I saw it and it fled into a field. It was obviously very scared. An impossible situation I suppose.

I tried to catch a sheep once too, on a country road! Needless to say it didn't go well! Sheep was fine but just couldn't grab him. You'd think these animals would realise we're just trying to help and run happily into our arms

ganmo

loveisdivine wrote: »

I've just seen as well that some other people tried to catch the dog only a few minutes after I saw it and it fled into a field. It was obviously very scared. An impossible situation I suppose.

I tried to catch a sheep once too, on a country road! Needless to say it didn't go well! Sheep was fine but just couldn't grab him. You'd think these animals would realise we're just trying to help and run happily into our arms

Hehe sheep usually only care about 2 things, being with their mates and food. If treating a sick sheep in a field being able to catch it is a bad sign and when you can't catch them any more it's a good thing