Motor Cars And Dogs

Unquestionably the greatest enemy that the dog possesses at the

present time is the motor car.



Presuming the owner of the dog is fortunate enough to know whose car

it was that ran over his dog, and to have some evidence of excessive

or unreasonable speed or other negligence on the part of the car

driver at the time of the accident, he will find the law ever ready to

assist him. A dog has every bit as much right to the high road as a

motor car. Efforts have been made on the part of motor owners to get

the Courts to hold that dogs on a high road are only under proper

control if on a lead, and that 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. Even supposing a Court to hold that the fact of a dog

being loose in this way or unaccompanied was evidence of negligence

against his owner this would by no means defeat his 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 decide this valuable principle.