@Leucrotta we have a jacket, thankfully

more pressing is that our phone has 12% battery!

@frost Okay, get home as soon as you're clear of this? You did the right thing, I'm very proud of you. Thank you.

@Leucrotta

@Leucrotta oh there's a listed emergency number that isn't 911

510-777-3211

@Leucrotta Pff that's the cop emergency line and it's ALSO on hold.

@Leucrotta Wish we could call an animal hospital instead of the cops

@Leucrotta They got back to us after 10 minutes.

they asked if we were gonna be waiting here and I kinda dodged the question; tempted to stay here and wait for them. Probably shouldn't though.

They asked if we wanted to leave our name and number with them so I did.

@frost they're the police, they're the guys who make an exorbitant salary because they're supposedly the professionals, they can do it. Also this is already a scary enough situation with some OPD dudes scaring the fuck out of you.

@Leucrotta huh. Okay. Thanks; yeah, heading home sounds good.

@Leucrotta heading home

fffuck, we're shaking. leaving is the right option.

@Leucrotta I think this is worse emotionally than if we'd found a dead human body

and on top of it, society /doesn't care/
"here's the police non-emergency line, not an animal hospital emergency hotline"

when we were getting ready to call the number, a bus driver came over and made a reference to them getting hit by a car
which would explain the no visible wounds part...
said it must have happened less than half an hour ago since the dog wasn't there before

@Leucrotta fucking

how do you run over someone and then just NOT FUCKING CARE

presumably someone else dragged them onto the sidewalk I guess

@frost There *are* folks who are assholes, but there are also people who just panic when stuff like that happens - are they gonna be in trouble, is their car in good shape to make it back, etc. It's possible they were the ones who got the dog to the sidewalk; it's also possible the dog managed to get to the sidewalk on their own.

@Leucrotta huh. huh.

I hope so.

@Leucrotta *deep breath*

we're home.

ffffh.

holy
fucking

... fuck.

thanks for like, validating how emotionally hard this situation is

because otherwise I would be going "people in fiction deal with dead bodies all the time, why should merely seeing a possibly-dead person shake us up this bad?" and/or telling myself we're actually fine.

@Leucrotta oh and I am a bit worried the cops might not help because like
they're professionals, but they're professionals of /copping/, not medical
then again there's the whole "rescuing kittens from trees" trope? so I hope they do know what they're doing.

...I think I'm more worried they might be like "meh whatever, it's just a dog".

@frost I don't think that'll be too much of a problem; they'll check over the dog, and if the dog really *is* dead, clearing the body away is their job, and if the dog's alive they'll get it to a shelter of some sort because that part *isn't* something they can really do well. Either way once called in, they're going to do something.

@Leucrotta that's good to hear.

@Leucrotta ... my first thought was "oh cute sleeping dog! should take a picture :3"

I don't know where we got the thought that something might be wrong, but I'm really glad we did. because yeah. it was /very/ wrong.

@Leucrotta I should probably have mentioned that they weren't breathing

I was just too relieved at finally getting through to someone that I just said "injured dog"

@frost Glad you made it back okay. Again, thanks for taking the hit of checking on them and calling it in.

People in fiction deal are okay dealing with dead bodies all the time because they're *people in fiction*. Trust me on this one, I've seen how many dead people of various species over the years? I'm still not always cool with it.

@Leucrotta *weak snort* good point
and huh..yeah..yeah.

*leans against.*

@Leucrotta Heck it, might wait here. Now that we're not using our headphones to make phone calls, we can plug our phone into our battery pack. (It won't really charge at a meaningful rate, but it will keep the phone from going flat.)