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A little brown dog walked down the street.
Where are you going, little brown dog?
I looked up and down the street and did not see its owner.
Only one girl was on the street, far away.
The girl did not seem to be the little dog’s owner.
The little dog happily shuffled down the sidewalk.
A shiny blue tag bounced up and down on the little dog’s collar.
The little dog stopped to sniff at a tree, then continued on its way.
The little dog trotted away quickly until it was a small figure in the distance.
I hope you stay safe, little brown dog.
***
This happened to me this evening as I was getting into my car to join my family for dinner. No one was around except for the one girl, pretty far away, and who did not seem to be aware of the dog. I’m pretty sure she wasn’t the owner. I stopped, frozen, standing behind my open car door.
I know if I was the owner, I would have been infinitely grateful for the kind stranger who turned in my missing dog. On the other hand, maybe the dog was allowed to freely run around the block and would return to its owner by itself. There was also the risk of it being unfriendly or sick. Though to be honest, it was so small and cute that I doubt it would have been any real danger to me. I was lost at what to do.
I was not in a real hurry to go. I waited until it was far enough away that I couldn’t see it clearly, then got in my car and drove away. At least it was staying along the sidewalk. I hoped it didn’t go on the road. What troubled me the most was how innocent it was. Surely I should have acted to protect this innocent, vulnerable little pet from potential harm. Now I’ll never know what happened to it.
Perhaps I’ll regret my decision. I still don’t know how I feel about it. If I was a bad person, I wouldn’t care about what happened to this dog, or I might even have some more sadistic thoughts. Fortunately I am not that kind of person. If I was a good person, I would have at least tried to slow it down and take a look at the tag on its collar. I didn’t. I saw the situation, thought about it for a long time, and chose not to interfere. What kind of person does that make me?
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Has anyone ever told you that you think too much? Cause it's honestly not that big of a deal. I'm not saying it's necessarily a bad thing, but just relax man.
And if you really care about whether you're a "good"/"bad" person then well, the way you thought about this situation tells me a lot more about you as a person than what you did. Go ahead and aim for perfection but don't be so hard on yourself when you fail to meet your expectations ;x
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Nice read. I feel that at the end of the day our actions are really the only thing that matter, regardless of our thoughts or intentions. I wish exercising that in practice came easily to me.
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Netherlands4641 Posts
I'd say you're a good person who is overcautiously anxious.
Talking about the risk... Driving your car is probably more risky than checking this dog's collar, right?
You're likely comfortable at driving so you don't really think about the risks anymore.
If your anxiety - assuming you have it - is a regular problem in your life, you just chose to avoid dealing with an easy situation.
An easy situation that could have made easy/good practice.
Also because you chose to avoid the situation, you will keep wondering what if.
I agree actions matter the most, but I'd also say always think before you act.
In your case this possibly leads you to over think and start weighing in factors that are pretty much irrelevant.
Taking action generally gives you a much much better feeling than avoiding.
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There was a golden retriever type thing in the ski town we were staying at. Found him quite a few times wandering around while drunk in the early hours. Apparently he always goes back home anyway (called the owner the first time, then just let him wander about and play). Dogs are good that way.
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If there was a phone number on the tag I would have called the number to ask if they'd like you to do anything; if there's no tag then I would probably leave him for the time being.
I wouldn't say it makes you a bad person for not doing so, but generally you can tell if a dog is friendly as you get closer to it, and as it looks healthy with a tag it has an owner so it's pretty unlikely it's sick in any way that would affect you.
No sense dwelling on whether you made the right or wrong choice to let it go. You did what you thought was right at the time given the info you had and that's all that matters.
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EPT
