An Aberdeenshire woman has hit out at a callous driver who ran over her 10-month-old puppy and left it for dead.
Daisy Ann Marie and her family were heartbroken to find their beloved black Labrador Allie lying “in a lot of pain” on the road outside their home near Strichen.
The 39-year-old and her partner Robert Anderson had lost sight of the pup just for a few minutes while feeding their other animals on Tuesday morning.
They didn’t think much of it at first as it wasn’t unusual for Allie to wander about the 300-acre livestock farm in the countryside.
She had never gone that far away from the house before so they were not concerned.
Nothing that we do will ever bring her back – but we just want to know what happened.”
But when Allie didn’t respond to any of their calls, they immediately knew something was wrong.
The pair went down the farm track to the rural road, which connects Strichen and New Aberdour, and found the dog lying on the verge barely breathing.
They grabbed Allie and rushed to the vet in Fraserburgh in a desperate attempt to save her – but it was too late.
“She was alive in the van,” Miss Marie said.
“But they must have hit her with a lot of force because her abdomen and her chest had filled with fluid by the time we got to the vet.
“The doctors reckoned that she was hit so hard that it caused a lot of damage to her spleen, and there was no doubt that the dog was in a lot of pain.
“She began to crash when we got there, they tried CPR for about 20 minutes but then we had to make the heartbreaking decision to just let her go.”
‘Allie was a beautiful little dog’
The family got Allie from a breeder in August to be a friendly companion to their three other dogs – Collies Maggie and Indy, and golden Lab Bailey.
Allie quickly became part of the family and would spend her days following them around and playing with Miss Marie’s kids Keira, 14, Dorothy, 10, and one-year-old Alex.
She said the death of their puppy was a hard blow to the children who considered Allie as their “little friend”.
“She was a beautiful little dog and she loved the kids,” Miss Marie added. She would spend every day with us – following us around and playing with the kids.
“Nothing that we do will ever bring her back – but I just don’t understand why somebody would do this and just leave her there.
“We were very lucky timing-wise that we found her literally just minutes after it had happened, but we are never going to know what happened to Allie.”
Desperate plea for hit-and-run driver to come forward
Miss Marie has now made a plea to the driver responsible to “do the decent thing” and come forward to give her family some closure.
She has already reported the incident to the police in the hope of finding out what happened to Allie and tracking down the culprit.
The mum of three added this should be a wake-up call to drivers in the area, stressing they should all “slow down” and be cautious of livestock jumping out on rural roads.
She fears this is “another accident waiting to happen” as motorists often go too fast near her house without any consideration for the people living nearby.
Miss Marie added: “I understand accidents happen and the dog should have never been down there, but at least come and let us know what happened.
“I would have had more respect for them had they actually come and said ‘Look, I’m really sorry. She just shot out in front of me’. Just do the decent thing.
“There are no brake marks on the road so I’m not sure if they even tried to stop.
“People are just not thinking on these rural roads. Just slow down. Next time it might be me or my partner, or one of my children. Just be responsible and take care.”
Conversation