To Wolfy:
We live in the country, down a broken little road. Its quicker to drive to our neighboors. Its very slow and quiet in cedar creek, no one flys down our road simply because we live at the end of the road with maybe three neighboors down from where we are (which we know personally and all have small children and know there are small children a foot). We live out in the woods, Great Pyrs require a lot of land- we have four acres for ours to wander around on.
As far as her being hit- by whom? Or neighboors who dont sped- Ever? the people who live two miles up the road that just felt like meandering around where we live? Why?
Our dogs never 'wandered' off when they went into heat- mainly all of our dogs were fixed excluding maisi. She was bred and cared for while she was in heat (the first time we kept her indoors at night, in a running pen that is TOO SMALL for a dog like her to live permantly.) We waited for her to reach age what and what not.
All the other dogs- we lived, again, out in the country surrounded by pretty much my entire family reunion. you would have to drive three miles from my old house to meet anyone that wasnt related or a close family friend. I'm wish i were kidding but i can name every person in every house in a three mile radius around my grandmother's.
My mother's poodle was stolen out of the house.
All the other dogs were stolen after someone drove down a long gravel road into a cleared area (one way in one way out) to steal those animals.
(at night... the dalmation a few days before christmas)
(the bloodhound about four month's after)
(this was in the early 90s)

We lived inbetween where we were and where we are now in the city limits. We had one indoor dog that was amazingly not stolen.

If you want us to fence hills and woodlands to prevent dogs that dont leave our house in the first place (dont think i dont know where 7 dogs spend 90% of their day (in our front/side/back yard or 10% of the time in the creek in the woods behind our house).
The only time i have ever seen our dogs leave was to bark in front of our house at the two seperate couples that walk by themselves or with their dogs. None of our animals are car chasers.

This isn't exactly the safest road to go over 30 miles an hour either- deer, turkeys, rabbits, squirrels, people on horseback, every day atleast one person can be seen on a fourwheeler either visiting a friend or going fishing at the lake if you have access to the gate key... heck my brother takes ours and drives twenty minutes to his friend's house without fear of being run over.

In the four years i've lived hear there were only one dead dog i've heard about- and that was when someone's dog-aggressive rottweiler got loose and killed someone a mile up the road from us's beagle.

I'm not trying to say "oh we're too good for fences" its just that we're thirty minutes away from any real 'active' road.
I also dont like being lumped in with people that get their dogs stolen all day long or run over every other day. We dont shy away from vet fees or actually -caring- for our animals.
We hadn't had anything happen like this since i was about six years old. Its obvious some crack-head realized we kept nice animals back in the day. They had no qualms about breaking into our house and stealing my mom's poodle. Two years later, when the Dalmation and Bloodhound came up missing around the same time and were both very valuable animals (101 dalmation movie around the time though ours was already a year or so old) (bloodhounds are acutally used as working dogs around here).

I'm glad that while im trying to print out a list of litterally every veternarian and humane shelter/pound of alabama as well as make flyers offering a 200$ reward cash I get to be berated about my situation which up until now has never cause us nor anyone else on our road any problems.

So.
Maybe its just you didn't know exactly how rediculously in the sticks we lived.. (its actually legal out here NOT to have to fence your animals... wonder why when you're closer 'in town' you do)..
Or you're just right and there's no changing your mind.

I'll worry about getting our dog back now.