"He’s certainly dead now." 

That’s what the surfer guy said to his buddy. But I get ahead of myself.

I was doing one of my long runs on a bike path by the beach. Below you can see the beach in the first picture, the road in the second and the tracks in the third.

I saw a dog run out onto the road as if he was spooked. He ran back off the road toward the beach, then across the road again and up onto the rock berm of the railroad tracks. He wasn’t on the railroad tracks, but he was walking along side the tracks, toward the camera, stepping on the ties that stick out beyond the tracks. In the picture, he would be to the left of the rails heading toward the camera.

Ten seconds later I saw a train coming full speed behind him. It was one of those trains traveling backwards, with the engine at the trailing end of the train, facing the opposite direction of travel, so that the front of the train was the flat end of the caboose. It didn’t sound its horn. Whoever was in control was not looking at the tracks because it did not slow down.

The dog, who was still spooked, did not know the train was coming. It was a particularly quiet train and any rumbling might be mistaken for trucks on the highway, which is hidden to the right at the top of the hill in the third picture. I watched as the silent scene unfolded, holding one fist in the air and one to my mouth as I hoped the train would sound its horn or the dog would get off the berm.

At the very last moment, when the train was about twenty feet away, the dog looked back, freaked out and jumped to face it. He didn’t make it all the way around.

I saw him fly up about half the height of the train and out for about thirty feet, spinning all the way as if he had been shot with an xbow on the Crypt. (I calculated the distance by standing on the spot where his paw print trail on the railroad ties stopped abruptly.)

Some surfer guy who was across the road by some cars said, "He’s certainly dead now."

He told me that the dog had been seen wandering the area for the last three days. He had been dodging cars all that time and had just missed getting hit by a truck right before I saw him. He would not let anyone catch him.

He landed in the bushes as shown here.

There was blood everywhere.

I didn’t want to turn him over, but half his face was sheared off. In the picture above, you can see the fur which was on the right side of his face now hanging below his chin. In the one below, you can see that the right side of is face is, well, sheared off.

Notice he had his last game of fetch-the-stick, ever.

You should be more like Cantrip.



Twitchy: "I pulled a Cantrip . . ."
GivePeaceAChance: "If the Tempest had nipples, I'd pinch that shit."
Xylicon: "I'm about to deliver my [Richard] in your face for posting that stupid shit. "
WDF?: "He keeps reaming me... night after night... I'm rather sore."
GivePeaceAChance: "OMG MY NIPS ARE HARD"
llenta: "cantrip, you fail!!!"
Filliam H. Muffman: "i'm on top of dick"

Oh, poor dog. :(

You can't see it in the picture, but there were ants crawling all over the juicy parts.  I thought it a sad fate for any animal so I talked to a state park employee.  He really didn't seem interested in removing the dead dog since it was not on park property. 

I tried talking to Caltrans.  They weren't interested because it wasn't on the road. 

I called the Amtrak reservations agent line and they said to call the humane society.  I didn't even argue with the person that it was on their property.

I called the humane society but they were closed, and I'm not sure they would do something like that where that far out of city limits.

So, I emailed Amtrak, Caltrans and the Humane Society with a link to this thread to get give them the full details and invited them to comment here. We'll see if they do. 

You should be more like Cantrip.



Twitchy: "I pulled a Cantrip . . ."
GivePeaceAChance: "If the Tempest had nipples, I'd pinch that shit."
Xylicon: "I'm about to deliver my [Richard] in your face for posting that stupid shit. "
WDF?: "He keeps reaming me... night after night... I'm rather sore."
GivePeaceAChance: "OMG MY NIPS ARE HARD"
llenta: "cantrip, you fail!!!"
Filliam H. Muffman: "i'm on top of dick"