When a passerby saw the black lab staying near her dog friend who had been struck and killed in traffic, he set up orange cones to warn motorists and filmed the remarkable dog while waiting for help to arrive.  The black lab, now named Grace, remained by her friend’s side despite the heavy traffic.  She didn’t have tags or a microchip and has actually already been adopted.  I hope she is kept safe and happy from now on.

Grace’s story is reminiscent of a pair of dogs in Japan after the tsunami, a dog in Chile who hauled it’s mortally injured friend off a very busy highway, and the New York dog who protected his mom after she had been hit by a car.

Like many/most countries, Chile isn’t an easy place to be a dog.   It’s estimated there are 220,000 stray dogs in the Santingo area alone.  Earlier this month, Chilean authorities raided the Benjamin Vinuña Mackenna Animal Protection Society where disease is rampant and animals are being killed in huge numbers instead of sheltered and adopted out.  This organization was established in 1915 and reportedly is representative of the conditions in most shleters in Chile.

Here’s an interesting gallery of dogs in Chile.

You can also see the video and read a translation of the news commentary.

These images seen from the surveillance cameras show a very common situation with our overpopulated highways. It is normal for us to see dogs run over. In the video, we can see this dog fighting for his life because he was run over by the vehicle.  What is very touching is to see the very heroic actions of this other dog who is trying to pull him to the side of the highway. We are going to keep seeing things like this until we find a solution to the dogs living on the streets.

There is an update on the dogs in Chile and you can see the video in this previous post.

There is an update on the dogs in Chile and you can read a translation of the news commentary in this post.