City Danger for Dogs (Post worth recycling from Nov 2010)

Did you know your dog could be electrocuted by metal panels on sidewalks?

Lisa McKibbin had her dog Sammy out for a walk in Seattle’s Queen Anne neighborhood on Thanksgiving when Sammy stepped on an electric plate near a Seattle City Light lamp post. Lisa McKibbin had never heard of the term “contact voltage” until her German shorthair pointer was electrocuted Thanksgiving Day.

“We were doing our daily walk,” she says about Sammy, the 6-year-old, 68-pound dog. Then he just started screeching and yelping in pain. I thought he had stepped on something sharp. Then he just started convulsing and collapsed. I reached out to help him, and he was in so much pain that he bit my thumb. I was screaming, ‘Somebody help me! Oh, my God, I don’t know what’s happening with my dog!’

A man performed CPR on the dog’s chest, says McKibbin, and someone else opened Sammy’s mouth to try and help. There was enough electricity still in Sammy that the person got a shock from inside the dog’s mouth. The same thing happened to McKibbin. “It was a good shock, like when you plug something into the wall and you get jolted,” she says.

McKibbin has started a blog SAMMY'S BIG HEART and has posted photos of Sammy and written, “He was my best friend, my soul mate.”

If posting this can help save another pet or a child...please visits Sammy's page and learn more about this and what to watch for as you are out walking your dog.