Stanley is the first to greet guests at the back gate of his home on Thorne Avenue on Cleveland's East Side.
The three-year-old Labrador beagle mix wags his tail and bounds eagerly to greet visitors, hopping up on them with his lone front paw.
"He's kind of the love of our lives," said Dane Vannatter, a Glenville resident and Stanley's owner.
A year and a half ago, Vannatter and his husband, Todd Barr, would've found it unimaginable to make quips and smile at Stanley's three-legged trot across the yard as they do now.
Vannatter calls the day Stanley lost his front right leg one of the worst of his life.
In December 2023, the dog's leash snapped, and he dashed out onto their residential street, running into the path of a city garbage truck. It struck Stanley and "degloved" his front right leg, recalled Vannatter.
"I mean it looked like... ribbons," Vannatter said. "I didn't know what to do, but I'm screaming. I'm yelling for neighbors."
The driver said he was going five miles per hour, according to a police report. But the couple said however fast he was going it was too fast for the residential neighborhood right near a school. They caught the incident on their Ring camera.
A city spokesperson called the incident a “tragic and unfortunate accident,” and said it’s "impossible" to know the speed from the video.
The city denied Vannatter's claim with the law department because of a local ordinance that requires owners leash their dogs in public spaces, the spokesperson said.
But Vannatter said money is not the point: Now, nearly two years later, the couple said they want an apology and a conversation with the city to help make sure someone else doesn’t get hurt.
"The most important thing is let's address some [of] the problems that were already there," said Vannatter, who has called his council member and spoke at city council about neighborhood traffic safety. "Problems that are already there is why this happened to Stanley. There's no speed bumps. There's not even a speed sign on the street."
The city said it has completed substantial work to address speeding on surface streets in the last year. Since Stanley's accident, crews have installed more than 100 speed tables across Cleveland and are working on putting in more based on residents’ requests.
Vannatter said he doesn't just want the garbage trucks to slow down — he says people rush down his street on the way to a nearby school.
The city points to vehicle speed data collected over a one-week period earlier this spring on his street that shows an average vehicle speed of 12 miles per hour.
Public perception of safety is still a concern for Clevelanders, especially when it comes to speeding, said Ward 9 Councilmember Kevin Conwell, who represents the Glenville neighborhood.
"What I see is speeding all over the city," Conwell said. "With the lack of police officers… that's the disadvantage."
Between 2016 and 2020, over 47% of traffic deaths in Cleveland were speed-related, according to Data from Vision Zero Network, a national coalition working toward eliminating traffic fatalities.
People are calling their council members to complain, Conwell said.
"Like someone the other day requested for a speed bump on Herrick [Road]; They're speeding up and down the street, like it's no one's business," Conwell said. "You've got to say things when you see it because a lot of times when they're speeding... you got to break behaviors because they know they can speed."
Conwell said he's working on legislation to equip Cleveland Metropolitan School District buses with cameras to capture and ticket drivers speeding past bus's stop signs.
He also encouraged concerned residents to call Cleveland's non-emergency number — 216-621-1234 — to request a traffic cop on their block.
On Vannatter and Barr’s street, they say they've installed their own “slow down” signs — without much success.
"Everybody that lives along here, they have grandkids. There's a lot of grandkids that play in the street on holidays," Vannatter said. "They should be able to do that. And we should all be able walk our dogs, and we should have mindful traffic that would see a dog come running."
But as for Stanley, they say he does everything on three legs just as happily as on four.
"He never tries to compensate. He'll just slowly use this little brake and go down, but he does have his skid mark," Vannatter said, pointing to a bald patch of fur where Stanley slides onto his belly.
"But he still does all his downward-facing dog stretches," quipped Barr.
