A dog at a Rockville veterinary clinic to get its teeth cleaned Tuesday morning decided to make a break for it.
Unfortunately for the dog, one of the nearest roads was I-270 and the animal was struck by a car as it ran onto the busy 12-lane highway.
Two Rockville City Police Department officers responded quickly enough to rush it to a local veterinary hospital.
The dog, a Black Labrador Retriever named Star, suffered a fractured hip and is expected to make a full recovery and return home soon.
“I guess like everyone else, dogs don’t like going to the dentist,” Rockville City Police Department Maj. Eric Over said Thursday morning.
Over said the department received multiple calls around 9:45 a.m. Tuesday about a dog loose in the northbound local lanes of I-270 near the West Montgomery Avenue exit.
“A lot of passers-by saw what happened and immediately called,” Over said. “We were glad to see there’s a level of compassion out there.”
Over said Star was at a clinic in the Woodley Gardens shopping center, which is located just east of the raised interstate highway. The dog somehow got onto the highway, where Rockville police Cpl. Edgar Vallejo and Officer Seth Creel were the first to arrive after the animal was struck by the car.
Vallejo and Creel got hold of the dog and took it in for emergency care.
On Wednesday, the two visited Star at the emergency clinic.
