DOG LORE

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 230, 3 February 1911, Page 8

DOG LORE

THE MOTOR SLAYER. (By Laverock). Unquestionably the greatest enemy that tlie dog possesses nt the present time is the motor car. .It would he interesting to know how may specimens of the canine race have lost their lives hy being run over by motor cars in Taranaki alone since these machines came into being. During the last few mouths nine, to the writer's knowledge, including a pedigree bulldog, have crossed the great divide. A dog almost invariably leaves it till the last moment to get out of the way of any vehicle on a road. He is, in faxit, in this respect somewhat like the idea gained by a country yokel who spent a day in London, his impression being that the sole idea dominating an Englishman's life was to see how near he could get to being run over without actually performing the feat. In these circumstances it can well be understood that a dog, accustomed as he has been to the steady and reliable gait of his friend the horse, who will never, if he can possibly help it, tread on him, is entirely out of his reckoning with the (in most cases) terribly fast-running motor car. He is unable to gnage its speed, and pays the penalty. In cities where dogs learn to be very careful, and motors are bound to be, the risk is not so great, but in country towns and roads the mortality amongst puppies and dogs is very serious.

Presuming the owner of the dog is for- j tunate enough to know whose car it wasj that ran over his dog, and to have some: evidence of excessive or unreasonable I speed, or other negligence on the part of j the car driver at the time of the acci-1 dent, lie will find the law ever ready to, assist him. In most eases, no doubt, the] motor owner pays without recourse to j law, and in nearly all cases he is probably wise to do so, but if lie refuses to pay voluntarily, and the owner of the dog is reasonable and proper in his demands, a necessary action at law may as a rule lie entered upon with every confidence by the latter. A dog has every bit as much riglit to. the high road as a motor car. Efforts have been made on the part of motorowners to get the courts to hold that dogs on a high road are only under proper control if on a "lead," and if they are not on a "lead" the owner of them is guilty of negligence in allowing his dog to stroll about, and therefore is not entitled to recover. Such efforts have not been successful. In the first place, even supposing a court to hold that the fact of a dog being loose in this way or unaccompanied was evidence of negligence against the owner —and as far as the writer is aware no court has held any such thing—this would by no means defeat Ins owner's claim, for the law is that though a plaintiff may have been negligent in some such way as this, yet if the defendant could, by the exercise of reasonable care, have avoided the accident, the plaintiff can still recover. There are several cases that affirm this valuable principle, but there is one especially which to my mind is best quoted in any such action, viz., Davies v. Mann (10 M. and W. 546). In that case the owner of an ass, which had been negligently left hobbled and unguarded on a highway, sued the defendant, by the negligence of whose servant in driving along a highway at too rapid a speed the ass was run over and injured. Baron! Parke, in his judgment, says: "Although there may have been negligence on tfie part of plaintiff, yet unless he might be the exercise of ordinary care have avoided the consequence of defendant's negligence he is entitled to recover. Although] the ass may have been wrongfully on the high road, still defendant was . bound to go along the road at such a pace as would be likely to prevent mischief. If this were not so a man might justify the driving over of goods left on a public highway, or even over a sleeping man, or the purposely running against a carriage going on the wrong side of the road." I

Another method by which the motor-] owner endeavors to escape liability is by. contending that the accident was a sud-! den one, so sudden that it was inevitable, that nothing that lie could have donej would have prevented it, and that lie did overything that it was possible to do. If, however, the motor is going slowly these accident do not occur, and a motorist .in going along n road must have due regard for all things that may occur, and must always remember that he is not entitled to go along at such a pace as would be likely to cause accident. In a

wise decided a short time back the motor-driver proved tliat the dog was in a ditch, and just as lie passed by it jumped out in front of him, and did not give him time to pull up. The court held that that was no answer to the claim, that the driver, knowing full welll the eccentricities of a dog, ought to have been prepared for such a contingency taking place; instead of this he, knowing the dog was there, took the risk, did not slow up at all, and must pay the penalty.