COEUR d’ALENE — Kilo is learning to balance anew.

The 1-year-old pit bull and black Labrador mix is missing its front right leg. Playing in his front yard Sunday evening, Kilo chased a ball into Third Street, and was struck by a Dodge Durango.

The car’s passenger, Kilo’s owners said, got out of the car, saw the dog hurt, but then left.

“There was blood all over,” said Victoria McLean. “I was freaking out, the kids were freaking out, everyone was screaming.”

The dog was off leash in an unfenced yard on the corner of Third Street and Walnut Avenue when it chased a ball into the street around 8 p.m. The children, Camry, 7, and Damian, 6, had been playing with Kilo.

“That was the hardest thing they’d ever see,” Victoria said. “Their dog get run over like that.”

According to Victoria, the car pulled over and a man got out of the passenger side, and said, “he’s fine,” before getting back in the white Durango and leaving.

In the panic, she didn’t get the license plate number. Police didn’t get a report, and Victoria said there’s nothing much that can be done without a lead.

After chasing the frightened dog down, Victoria and Frank James tied its bleeding leg off with a wire, and rushed him to an emergency vet in Post Falls.

Kilo’s leg was amputated at the shoulder, and he was back at the house on Monday.

That visit cost the couple $1,118 in bills and medication. While it’s not allowed to let dogs run off leash, they said they just want drivers to slow down.

That driver was going 5 or 10 miles per hour faster than the posted 35 mph limit around the 1400 block of Third Street, the couple estimated.

Third Street is patrolled for speeders, but the only spot on the street identified as a top 10 crash site in the city is at the intersection of Locust Avenue, according to police.

Many, although not all, of the top 10 locations are frequently on U.S. Highway 95 where it intersects the busier roadways of the city, the department added.

Meanwhile, Kilo is recovering, back home learning to walk and balance.

“I call him son half the time,” Victoria said of the pup.

Still, she hopes some good could come of it like making some drivers more aware of safer driving habits, something Victoria said she developed with two young children for whom to care.

“People need to pay more attention to what is out there,” she said, “We can maybe get more people to pay more attention to their surroundings, and stop speeding when they’re driving down the street.”