This is killing me

[Redith]

I hit a dog tonight on the highway. I didn't see it until it was too late. The passengers all say i did the right thing because we were going 70 and there were a decent amount of cars around us and anything I did would have caused a wreck. I still feel awful as hell and can't sleep

[Silivren]

I have done that too. Its hard and sad I know..Hell I hit a squirrel and I burst into tears. You couldnt help it though, anymore than I could. While it hurts when you're on the highway stuff like that CANT be helped without risking peoples lives, and that sucks because I assume you REALLY love animals. But you did the right thing.

[Rhyela]

I would feel awful, too. I haven't hit any mammals, thank goodness, but I've hit a couple birds. It still bothered me, though.

But, yes, you did the right thing. As bad as you feel now, imagine if you had missed the dog and instead hit a car with a family and little kids inside, and they died instead.

[Anyia]

I have done that too. Its hard and sad I know..Hell I hit a squirrel and I burst into tears.

Running into/over animals is never fun. A long time ago I had a squirrel run into the front wheel of my bicycle on the way home from school. It was a squirrel I'd often seen sitting in a tree in a yard next to the road, and I was quite distraught when the little thing decided on making a mad dash across the road just as I was going past. I of course stopped to see if there was anything I could do for it, but the spokes seemed to have broken its neck.

What really freaked me out though was that as the squirrel went into convulsions for a few seconds before it died, a bird in the same tree the squirrel usually was in went completely nuts and started shrieking and flapping about. You can't tell me animals are incapable of forming cross-species friendships in the wild, not after what happened that afternoon.

I don't know if there's a particular moral of the story, other than sometimes bad things happen though we never intended them, and we just have to live with the outcomes, as sad as they may be. As others have already said, you chose the least bad option from a bad lot, which is as right as you can get.