Doggie Drama

Yesterday on the way home from church we came upon an interesting situation. I'll describe the facts and see if you can guess what had happened.
1. A car is stopped part way in two lanes, straddling the double yellow line.
2. There are skid marks leading to the parked car, probably about 50 feet long.
3. There was an lady frantically chasing a small dog, with it's leash attached to its neck, in the on-coming traffic lanes.

This was the situation when we arrived on the scene. Can you tell what had happened?

Emma was the first one to say, "I think the dog jumped out of the window." She was correct.

The lady captured the dog and returned to her car. The car sat motionless for several minutes as cars piled up in both directions. As we pulled around her, I rolled down my window and asked her if she was OK. She clearly was not.....
I parked our car in front of hers and walked back to see if she needed any help. I was worried the dog had been run over. I felt like it was fine because I'd watched it elude her grasp in the oncoming traffic lanes but I was concerned the dog could have been in shock as it ran around. As I approached her window the lady was sobbing and repeating "MY BABY, MY BABY" as she cradled the shaking dog. Both dog and owner were terribly shaken up. It was quite a scene. I quickly assessed the situation and realized they were both fine....whew. They just needed some encouragement to begin driving again. I offered to move the car out of the road but thankfully the lady was beginning to snap out of it and stated she was fine (I am not sure I agreed) and was almost to her destination.

Thankfully the dog and its owner were alright. It was quite a scene and though it wasn't a funny situation, it served as a great teaching point for our family. We told the kids as much as we love Cooper it is never a good idea to chase an animal into oncoming traffic and put both of your lives at stake. The other lesson we taught them is to use caution when driving with dogs and don't roll the windows down too far. It also provided quite a few laughs once we knew everyone was going to be fine. I don't think that lady will ever forget the mother's day her baby jumped out the car window into oncoming traffic, and I bet that is the last time she lets the dog sit on her lap with her window all the way down. Our family sure won't forget this mother's day. :)

Andrew has even recreated the scene a few times at home this afternoon.