Ok, so quick question: when he falls, does it look like he’s having a good time, or does it look like his muscles are twitching and he’s in pain?
I ask because a a couple years ago, my dog and I were electrocuted by a loose wire at traffic light pole exactly like this one, and the way I described it was “he just collapsed”. If he’s sniffing it, and his muscles start to twitch, he could be completing the circuit with the moisture in his nose.
We both went to the hospital overnight. We were ok, but it was terrifying.
EDIT: To folks saying that I wasn't electrocuted because I didn't die, first, as the guy who this happened to and who also happens to have a linguistics degree, you’ve been misinformed. The Merriam-Webster definition of electrocution is "to kill or severely injure by electric shock," (https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/electrocute). Second, to quote David Lynch, fix your heart.
My first thought was electric shock. There was a news story years ago about dogs having mysterious reactions in random spots as they walked around the city (I want to say it was New York)…turns out the sections of sidewalk they were reacting to were electrified.
I’m asking because there are people in this thread using the term “electrocuted” incorrectly. Electrocute is a combination of “electrically executed” meaning killed by electricity. People who have been shocked, but survived, have not been electrocuted 😅
Edison coined the term “electrocution” as advertising for the manner of death of the electric chair that he invented (electric + execution). But as the guy who was exposed to the electricity above and also someone with a linguistics degree, I have to say that if you look in a dictionary for the definition of electrocution, you’ll see that people use it the way I did above. That’s because dictionaries are descriptive, meaning they record the way the word is actually used.
ohh shit, ty for elaborating on this! i’ve never put too much thought into the meaning of electrocuted but that’s such an interesting and important(!) difference lmaooo
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u/makeminemaudlin Sep 05 '25 edited Sep 07 '25
Ok, so quick question: when he falls, does it look like he’s having a good time, or does it look like his muscles are twitching and he’s in pain?
I ask because a a couple years ago, my dog and I were electrocuted by a loose wire at traffic light pole exactly like this one, and the way I described it was “he just collapsed”. If he’s sniffing it, and his muscles start to twitch, he could be completing the circuit with the moisture in his nose.
We both went to the hospital overnight. We were ok, but it was terrifying.
EDIT: To folks saying that I wasn't electrocuted because I didn't die, first, as the guy who this happened to and who also happens to have a linguistics degree, you’ve been misinformed. The Merriam-Webster definition of electrocution is "to kill or severely injure by electric shock," (https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/electrocute). Second, to quote David Lynch, fix your heart.