back to article NY street-cleaning truck swallows dog

New York dog owner Robert Machin has described himself as "devastated" after a street cleaning truck made short work of one of his two Boston terriers, sucking the unfortunate mutt into its rotating brush mechanism, the New York Daily News reports. Machin had been walking Buster and Ginger on Thursday when tragedy struck. He'd …

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  1. Michael O'Malley

    Scooping?

    I've heard of a pooper scooper. But scooping up the pooper before he has a chance to do a poop, that seems a bit unreasonable.

    Was it a pre-emptive tyke?

  2. dervheid

    OooH!...

    That's gonna cost NYC serious bucks, methinks.

  3. Ian Moffatt
    Alien

    Not dead - just gone home

    Isn't that the dog from Men In Black?

  4. Moz

    I'm sorry....

    I laughed at this. Am I a bad person??

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Up

    Fantastic!

    The forward-thinking street cleaner should be commended, not sued, for attacking the dog shit problem at its source!

  6. Lol Whibley
    Coat

    that

    sucks.

    also, if the dog was on the road, he won't have a leg to stand on..

    mins the one with the short lead in the pocket..

  7. Tim
    Paris Hilton

    RoTM?

    Poor bugger, I can't imagine how upset he must be. Horrible way for a dog to go.

    Anyway, back to joking around, has the Lizard Army given up attacking humans and started going after our best friends instead? If so this is truly a frightening development: their understanding of human psychology has grown. They have graduated from simple toilet-based humiliation (portaloo lock-ins) to wounding us using a cruel understanding of the emotional bond we share with our pets.

    We can take comfort that the Lizard Army haven't yet learned that humans do best with their backs against the wall. The worse you treat us, the harder we will fight!

    (Obligatory PH-related footer: Paris, because she's obviously looking for her dog.)

  8. Gordon Pryra
    Paris Hilton

    What did he expect?

    With a dog like that?

    My dog could have had his AND a badger at the same time

    Paris, because shes a dog that sucks

  9. TheThing

    Lassie?

    What's that Buster?

    (woof)

    You say little Ginger's in the street cleaner?

    (woof woof)

  10. Greg

    New York Daily News - Speak Your Branes?

    Holy crap, that lot are worse than BBC's Have Your Say.

    OK, maybe not. But there's some interesting comments on there...

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Dead Vulture

    He he he...

    Very sad but also very funny at the same time.

  12. Graham Bartlett

    No RotM heading?

    Why no RotM heading for this? If anything deserves a RotM heading, it's a Ginger-gobbling rover-ravenous pup-plucking mutt-munching canine-chomping terrier-tasting pooch-partaking dog-devouring hound-hungry truck.

    (PS. I would have carried on, but I ran out of words for "dog". Did I miss any?)

  13. James Bassett
    Happy

    Funny stuff

    Ahhh, yet another American, so stricken with grief that he's only just able to recall, off the top of his head, the number of his lawyer. Presumably the money het gets (this is the US, so no question he might lose) will go towars a memorial for ginger and a generous donation to a nearby pet hospital.....<cough>

  14. Tim Bergel
    Go

    Sadly, ...

    ... the whirring brushes of canine death had already done their grisly work.

    Nice one - particularly at 9.09am on a Monday

  15. Chris Hawkins

    Thought it would be Paris first.

    I'm surprised.

    Paris (Gallic variety) has had street/pavement sweeping "Poodle Removers" for years and I always thought that the canine version of Soylent Green would premiere there first!

  16. Anonymous Coward
    Dead Vulture

    Ginger R.I.P.

    But, what a great invention! A Dog-sucking-machine. Could we get one of those over here in London and maybe pimp it up a bit? In that way it would suck in all those fighting dogs including their hoody/chavy owners.

    Cool.

    EAfH

    Vulture, because there is neither a dead dog nor a dead chav icon.

  17. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Up

    New York Daily News comments

    Wow. I followed the link to the original article and I have to say, the comments on the NY Daily News site make El Reg's comments pages look like a haven of peace and harmony.

    They may even surpass the now-legendary BBC "Have Your Say" for small-minded vitriol. Perhaps NY has its own Twat-O-Tron.

  18. John Robson Silver badge
    Stop

    Illegal?

    I know in the UK it's illegal to hit and run on a dog as well as on a human, pity the same courtesy isn't extended to cats:(

    I'd say it was the street cleaners responsibility to look where the hell (s)he is going. If it had been a child I doubt there would be any "sorry you should be careful with your children" quotes.

    STOP, do not pass go, do not collect £200

  19. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Pretty flippant response

    I love the way the Dept of Sanitation offer the advice ""It is important for all New Yorkers to remember to maintain the safety of their animals while walking city streets." Why not just come out with "Sucks to be you" and flip the poor bastard off.

    I hope they get pwned in court (it's NY, so why wouldn't they?). How does someone not notice a whole live dog going through the gubbins of their street sweeper? I can imagine it would make a fair old racket.

  20. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Where can I get one?

    Do they make right-hand drive mongrel munchers?

  21. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Up

    Slow news day today, is it?

    Did make me smile though...

  22. Dan

    @Moz

    The guy sitting next to me called me sick for laughing. So yes.

  23. Stuart

    HYS comments...

    The comments on the NY Daily news article are awesome, even better then the BBC HYS!

    "good for him jesus wanted him so jesus take him."

    This guy should go into grief counselling.

  24. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Dog on road = Litter

    NYC should use dog tag attached to the collar could be as evidence to give the dog owner a ticket for littering.

  25. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Definitely RoTM

    Everyone who's seen 1 or 2 will know that dogs can detect terminators. Clearly this one was sent back in time to thin their numbers for the future war.

  26. Gerry Keen
    IT Angle

    Are you really morphing into a tabloid rag?

    Hard as I try, I cannot see any IT angle on this.

    time for you to get your coat me thinks El Reg.

  27. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Up

    First @AC comment...

    I can feel my soul going straight to hell for laughing at that comment, what's more you're all coming with me tor laughing too!

    ( I'm just glad my regular DD to the RSPCA is all paid this month! )

  28. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Up

    I approve

    dogs are horrid things and should be exterminated with all prejudice and any means available

  29. Red Bren
    Pirate

    @John Robson

    "I know in the UK it's illegal to hit and run on a dog as well as on a human, pity the same courtesy isn't extended to cats"

    I thought it was illegal to hit & run on a licensed animal, e.g. sheep, cattle, etc. Cats were never licensed so were never covered by the law. Now that the dog license has been abolished, they might not be covered either. And every chav can have their own friendly little pit-bull called "Biter" to play with the kids.

  30. Anonymous Coward
    Happy

    @Mike Richards

    Don't know if you've noticed, but in the UK (London, at least) the street-sweeping trucks are left-hand-drive so the operator can align to the pavement (and, hopefully, dogs) better. Maybe that was why the NY driver didn't see the pooch - was he in a left-hand-drive truck, on the other side to the mutt?

  31. Chris Bradshaw
    Alert

    @ Graham Bartlett

    Lester has been assimilated, this is the third story in a row that is an RotM candidate that hasn't been marked as such.

    We're on our own...

    (BTW el Reg, what about an RotM icon to help us keep track of the stories, if you lot won't flag them yourselves??)

  32. James O'Brien
    Flame

    Wow im gonna goto hell for posting this

    But it made me giggle. I will say though that the street sweepers in NYC must be damn good at the job since there was no mention of a red smear left for 2.5 blocks.

    Your driver today is Larry. Hes hooked on crack and has a 40 in his pocket.

    Yep NYC gotta love it

    /flames for ovbious reason

  33. Anonymous Coward
    Paris Hilton

    @Moz

    I heard chuckling and much pointing this morning about it, so:

    1 - yes, you are going to hell - bad times

    but

    2 - You will have ALOT of company.... good times!! :)

    Paris - because she sucks dawgs too... ahem

  34. Anonymous Coward
    Joke

    Someone had to say it....

    Dog gone it (IT angel)!!!!!!!! Sorry - I thought it was funny too! Posting AC so the MIB will not get me!

    :)

  35. Peter Gold badge

    Can we get one for pigeons?

    I'm pretty sure we can get some serious wear and tear on a few of those machines at Trafalgar square :-)

    Standard sales tactics: drop a load of stuff on the ground (seeds, in this case) and then offer to hoover them up again. Including pigeons.. Just keep the kids out of the way, mainly because they could clog up the machine :-).

  36. amlendu
    Alert

    Invite him to London

    I want him in my area. Parks are used for dog poo more then kids to play on.

  37. Gordon

    Where are the NYPD?

    Why bother to clean NYC, if you clean up all the dirt and scum there won't be much left holding the place together!

    If they can run over a dog, they can run over a person - especially a child. The driver clearly wasn't paying adequate attention - or purposely ran the dog down. Also the machine clearly had it's brushes down so was cleaning at the time, so wouldn't have been moving fast. So why didn't the driver stop???

    What I cannot work out is i'd expect a dog to hear and see it coming and get out the way. Going to cost the NY DoS serious cash, i'd guess. And one hell of a lot of goodwill.

  38. Brandon

    mutt-suck fatality

    I love you reg! Best subtitle ever! I laughed at work and got hell from my boss...

  39. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    <no title>

    I hadn't realised cleaning trucks were capable of speeding.

  40. Anonymous Coward
    Jobs Horns

    @amlendu

    You got it wrong. Completely wrong! Dog poo is left in parks for kids to play with - kind of getting in touch with nature for all those [insert your favourite game console]-degenerated kids.

    Don't complain, it's a cruel world and it suits me well.

    EAfH

    Ballmer, because there is no dog poo icon.

  41. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    @amlendu

    "Parks are used for dog poo more then kids to play on."

    What kind of games does dog poo play in parks?

  42. Daniel B.
    Dead Vulture

    Stop dogging me around..

    Woof! Woof!

    Was this one of those midget-sized dogs? If so, I wouldn't be surprised if the driver didn't notice the mutt. Anyway, who in their right mind would take their dog near an operating street-cleaner? I would wait until the thing passed on to prevent exactly these situations. Dogs have a habit on pulling *away* from their master, so they could easily get in range of a dog-sucking sweeper ... or a speeding car. This is exactly the reason my cousin lost his dog; the mutt thought it was wise to stand on the street to "wait" for traffic... and got hit on the head by incoming 60 km/h traffic.

    The dead vulture icon, 'coz that's how it would look like after trying to cross 60 km/h traffic.

  43. Jesse
    Black Helicopters

    How did this happen?

    The only way that I can picture this occuring is that the brushes must have grabbed some slack in the leash that was near or on the curb. No dog is stupid enough to go near a streetcleaner. Most dogs are freaked out by a vacuum cleaner.

    Or the street sweeper was a decepticon.

  44. Anonymous Coward
    Black Helicopters

    RoTM Proof!

    Spooky or what?

    Owner = Robert Machin, Pooch = Ginger, Anagram = Ggrrr Bot Machine

    The warning is there for all to see, and hear, if you listen to a recording of the truck being driven in reverse gear.

  45. Vaughan Trevor Jones

    Seriously people!

    Wow the human race is more screwed up than I thought. All you people who think its funny, wonder how you would all feel if your kid (yes animals are like children to some people) or even your pet if this happened to.

  46. Anonymous Coward
    IT Angle

    I may have found the IT angle

    If we posit that the dog in this case was the dog in the following article:

    http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2008/06/16/dog_lead_cat_5/

    Right, that mystery solved, how about some lolcats?

  47. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Street Cleaning in New York

    Street cleaning in NYC is a crazy thing.

    It doesn't matter if the machines are left-hand drive (which I think they are), because most of the streets in NYC are one-way. 50% of the time they're sweeping what they can't see.

    NYC has "Alternate Side Parking Rules". A typical rule would be "No Parking Mon & Thu 7:00A-7:30A" on one side, "No Parking Tue & Fri 7:00A-7:30A" on the other. These rules go on for a dozen blocks, and then the dozen blocks would be no parking 7:30 to 8:00 and so on. The sweepers don't dally, they need to move quickly to cover the entire zone during the time allowed because the motorists are all double-parked on the other side of the street waiting for the window to expire so they can park again.

    People begin moving back 5 minutes before the time officially expires, so at the end of a zone, the sweepers are rushing to finish and sometimes swerving in and out between parked cars. Don't forget the normal traffic which is hectic enough.

    The sweepers make a pretty wide detour of parked cars; there's no point in getting close to the car since there's nothing to clean there. Still, with a leash, the dog could have been into the middle of the street. No way a cleaner swerving around the car could have seen it. And no, he probably couldn't see an 18 month old baby crawling around so don't let your baby crawl into the middle of the street. Children are tall enough to be seen, but you probably don't want them in the middle of the street either.

  48. Dave

    @John Robson

    It's actually only a requirement to report hitting a dog to the police within 24 hours. Even then, if the dog didn't die at the scene then plod isn't interested. I discovered this the day a dog ran out of a pub car park, bounced off my car and ran back in. By the time I had managed to get out of my car (busy main road) and checked the car for damage (dog owner can be liable), couldn't see dog, car not visibly damaged, I got in and went home. Called the local copshop that evening, who wanted me, with all my insurance and registration documents, to attend a manned station, but lost interest when I said the dog had run off. So I went in and reported it anyway (minus documents) just so they'd have some paperwork to do. And also in case the owner ever reported an incident.

  49. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Mad animal lovers

    "(yes animals are like children to some people) "

    Well...some people are clearly bonkers then. Animals are not humans.

    I for one heartily approve the demise of one ugly poop-spreading rat-dog in-bred and incapable of performing any useful work, and look forward to many more being nailed in the future.

  50. McIntyre

    Truck's Revenge

    Dogs chase trucks... Truck EATS dog! Sounds like payback to me. Maybe the owner will be more responsible and aware of his surroundings in the future. -Probably not, someone ELSE is always responsible when things go wrong for some people. I hope the judge throws any lawsuit out.

  51. BillPhollins

    Only because it wasn't a real dog...

    My dog would've kicked it's arse. And then bitten the driver.

  52. Anonymous Coward
    Stop

    @AC "Mad animal lovers"

    I admit, animals are not like children. In fact, animals are much preferable over children! They - talking about animals now - grow up much quicker, don't mess around that much, you won't have to clean their bums for years, etc. And they don't ruin the better part of your life and in the end put you in a nursing home!

    Yes, some people are clearly bonkers: who, with a sound state of mind, would want to have children?

    EAfH,

    who has neither pets nor children but rather had the former

  53. Anonymous Coward
    Coat

    Nursery rhyme

    Where, o where, has my little dog gone?

    Oh where, oh where did he go?

    He got sucked up and mangled to death in a New York street sweeper

    Where, o where did he go....

    Mine's the one with "Poet Laureate" on the back.

  54. Colin Millar
    Coat

    Its not ROTM - its the Monkeys

    In Escape from the Planet of the Apes it was made clear that the killing of the dogs and cats allowed our soon-to-be monkey overlords to infiltrate our homes and prepare for the conquest of the earth.

  55. Robert Day
    Coat

    Anyone else find this really bizarre?

    Not the dog bit I mean.. Just the simple fact that there was a street sweeper, cleaning the streets.. in the Bronx!!! I mean, this is the worst of the worst in the US. (ok, maybe parts of Detroit are worse, and some areas down in the deep south can be argueably worse.,...) But the Bronx have a worldwide reputation for being disgustingly dirty, and rather.. well, gross. And here, in stark contrast to the rest of the city of New York in general, is a machine designed purely to make things CLEAN??! Something is amiss, if you ask me.

    Mine's the fur one....

  56. Dex
    Joke

    Maybe (Given thats it's the Bronx)

    He should've done a drive-by on the owner too? admittedly a rather slow drive-by but still it would've left no hassle as it would just be seen as a normal day in the gu lovin' Bronx

  57. Charlie
    Thumb Down

    The article reads as though it were written in the fashion of a sick joke.

    The article reads as though it were written in the fashion of a sick joke.

  58. Raving
    Thumb Up

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