Danielle Dunham and her family are mourning the loss of one of their dogs, Pepper, who was hit and killed by a car Thursday at the north end of Sharpe Road in Pitt Meadows.
The driver did not stop and left the scene, said Dunham, who arrived around 10:30 a.m. with her mother, three-year-old son and four dogs.
Two of the dogs belonged to Dunham, the others to her parents.
She let her dogs – Bella, a labradoodle, and Pepper, a black lab – out of the back of her truck.
They were off-leash, as were her mother’s dogs.
Dunham said the dogs usually run up to the dike, where she and her mother leash them before going for their walk.
At the same time they arrived, a car was backing up and turning around on the narrow dead-end road.
Dunham said her mother shouted at the male driver to stop while they leashed the dogs.
“Have some patience,” her mother told the man.
Dunham said he responded that the dogs should have already been leashed, and he continued to turn around.
Dunham and her mother corralled three of the dogs.
Dunham had seen Pepper go down an embankment and assumed she was drinking water from the ditch.
Dunham took a picture of the man in his older model silver Mazda, as well as the license plate before it “zoomed” off.
She then called for Pepper, but the dog didn’t respond.
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She found Pepper, lying upside down, stuck in the bramble down by the ditch.
A “nice man” in the area carried Pepper’s body up the embankment, while a woman of aboriginal ancestry performed a traditional speech.
Dunham’s father came and took Pepper to a vet, who determined one of Pepper’s lungs had been punctured by a rib.
“She died instantly,” Dunham said.
She didn’t see the impact.
She called Ridge Meadows RCMP and provided the pictures she took. But she said there’s likely not much police can do.
“Ridge Meadows RCMP confirm they are investigating an alleged incident involving a vehicle and a dog which occurred on January 9, 2020,” said Const. Julie Klaussner.
Dunham said it was a traumatic day.
She planned to have a cast of Pepper’s paw made and have her cremated.
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