A Day in the Life.

You’ve seen ‘Animal Cops’ on Animal Planet right? Those people in uniforms that find awful puppy mills and starving horses and take the asshole owners to court. Or the one who picks up a hit-by-car dog and rushes it to the vet just in the nick of time.

Well, that happens sometimes.

The tedious, long and monotonous day of an animal control officer is heavily edited to make those TV programs look way more exciting than the real deal. Just like the TV show COPS, or really any job, which only shows the fun stuff.

My day looks more like this.

The alarm yanks me out of slumber at 4:45am. It takes a good minute to find the motivation to leave the comfy, warm bed. Most mornings I manage to drag my butt downstairs to the basement and complete a quick morning workout. As hard as that is, it does help wake me up, and I don’t regret the early hour as much once it’s over. A quick shower, brewing a thermos of coffee, and feeding the animals sees me out the door at 6:30 to drive a half hour into the city.

The Sheriffs Department I work for is downtown and the commute there and home is one of my least favorite things in this world. Especially in winter.

In our dimly lit locker room I put on my gear and grab the many items I’ll need for the day. The vest feels like a turtle shell that attaches itself to my body. The various items on my duty belt need to be charged and checked, and then I turn on the radio. The incessant voice I will hear for the next 10 hours. The voice I can’t ignore. The one that is with me even when I go to the bathroom. It all becomes part of my body for the duration of the shift. Like a robot built out of pieces of Lego that you just keep adding on.

I find my vehicle in the lot, load up my gear and start the computer with the various programs required for the day. It is now 7am, and in the summer the sun would be up. This time of year it is still dark and sadly will remain so for a while.

My work issued cell phone shows several messages and emails to check. I busy myself with these while sipping my delicious hot coffee. The one thing that brings me joy right now on this otherwise cold, dark early morning. This issued cell phone is a convenient curse. On one hand it is nice to be able to get ahold of people without having to make face to face contact every time. On the other hand, once they have my number people assume I have now become their personal ACO that they can contact incessantly.

I have just started looking through my list of bite quarantine releases for the day when dispatch interrupts me with a call about a dog near the highway exit. I don’t find the dog when I get there. The majority of calls we receive about loose dogs result in us not finding them. The county is huge and there are only a few of us and it can take upwards of 30 minutes to drive to a call. I take comfort in the fact that I also did not locate the dog laying on the side of the road and clear.

I’m sent a welfare check on a dog left outside, reportedly without food or shelter. This type of call is common and most of the time has a reasonable explanation. The dog may have just been put out to go potty. The dog may have access to a back porch or garage with food and water that the caller doesn’t see. We go either way, check it out and write a report. No one is home and I can’t see the dog in the backyard as reported. I post a notice of complaint with my phone number.

Then I call a cat owner whose animal bit him 10 days ago. I just need to verify that the cat is healthy and not showing signs of illness to close out the report. I am not able to reach the owner so leave a message, glad to have a cell phone I can be reached at.

This coffee is definitely hitting the bladder and I swing into the nearest fire station to use the bathroom. It is times like these that being a female works against me. The amount of equipment required to be taken off or moved just to pee is ridiculous.

The cat owner calls me back while I’m washing my hands in the bathroom. The cat is fine. Good, another call that can finally be closed out and removed from the list.

The sun has come up and I’m sent to a dog in a car at the local grocery store parking lot. The fact that there is a dog in a car is not a violation in of itself. The only time this becomes a problem is when temperatures climb into the 70’s and above and the inside of the vehicle heats up to dangerous levels. Sometimes the vehicle is no longer around when we arrive, sometimes we do actually find a dog inside. In those cases I take out my laser thermometer and point it into the window that was left a few inches down. If the dog appears fine I will wait for the owner to show up. More often than not they are immediately on the defensive and insist their animal is just fine. I ask them to come to the window with me, I point the laser into the car and show them, much to their surprise, that while we are standing in a comfortable 75 degrees outside, the internal temperature of the car is almost at 90. I educate them about the dangers of leaving dogs in cars, even with a window cracked. I explain how their dog can’t sweat like us and is thus at a higher risk of overheating. Most owners respond to the education. Some insist they know best. Some get a citation issued.

I find a shady spot in a church parking lot to write some reports. Church parking lots are great places to park in the middle of the week.

I see a coworker getting a call about another dog running loose in the city. A second coworker receives a call about meeting a court officer at the site of an eviction where several pets have been left behind. These calls come in far too often unfortunately. And trying to track down someone who has been evicted, and is now hanging in the wind, to charge with abandonment is difficult and time consuming. Time we don’t have unfortunately.

I get sent a call about a woman complaining that the neighbor’s dog is continuously coming into her yard. These types of calls make up roughly 30% of our call load. Ongoing neighbor disputes that now involve animals, be it dogs or chickens or cats. Most of the time when I speak to the complainant and ask if they have attempted contact with the neighbor to settle this, I am told no, they would like authorities to handle that. Not everyone acts like an adult in this world. That is why I have a job.

Results vary. You get the dog owners who own up to it and are apologetic, promising to confine the dog from now on. Other times you get the immediate deflection. How dare someone call about their dog when the neighbors cats are always running around. And by the way, that other neighbor across the street always lets their small dog run around, and why am I not speaking to them about that. Everyone in the neighborhood has dogs running loose so why am I only bothering them. How dare I.

Like I said, not everyone acts like the adult they are.

Thank goodness, its lunch time. I’m fortunate that my job allows me to stop at home for lunch since I reside in the county.

I finish lunch and find several calls pending. The afternoon hours get busy. I am sent a call of someone reporting their dog having been attacked by another dog. I contact the complainant and find that the incident happened almost a week ago. The owner is now upset that the other dog owner is not paying the incurred veterinary bill. I explain that we are not in a position to collect compensation for this but will investigate the complaint and respond accordingly. This may mean a citation being issued, or in some cases a court appearance. Unfortunately, these type of complaints are all too common. Dogs can be injured in dog parks, or simply while being walked on a leash down the street. Maybe the neighbors aggressive dog was loose again and got ahold of a dog tied up in its yard. The scenarios are endless and I’m sure the local emergency vet can tell you some doozies.

I make contact with the emergency vet asking them to e-mail me records of the injury they treated. I send a link to the caller where they can attach any photos they may have, which then loads it directly to my report. I find the owner of the other dog involved and they admit their dog ran out at the other dog being walked past the house. They don’t think their dog actually injured the other dog however. I tell them the vet records tell a different story. Whether they are responsible for the bill or not isn’t up to me, I’m just here to make a report and issue the very valid citation of dog running loose/being aggressive in this case. End of story. Anything else will need to be sorted out between the owners, sometimes resulting in a visit to small claims court.

I find another quiet parking lot to write up this lengthy report.

My husband has now started his shift and I make plans to quick meet up with him car to car since I haven’t seen him in two days. Getting home in the middle of the night has him sleeping when I get up in the morning. And by the time I get home end of the day he has already left the house to start his shift. There are days when we live like roommates. We are dispatched on the same channel in the county and for the short time that we work the same hours, hear the calls the other is sent to. I’m not going to lie, when I hear him calling for backup, clearly struggling with a subject, it makes me hold my breath and wish I didn’t have that front row seat to his dispatch traffic. We are able to chat for a few minutes before he is sent to a car accident.

A call near me shows someone found an old dog wandering in their yard and they are holding on to him until an animal control officer can respond. When I arrive, the dog is laying in the callers garage on a blanket, surrounded by bowls of water and various left overs from yesterday’s dinner. I pray he didn’t eat too much of this as it will surely be vomited up in the back of my vehicle.

The old dog has a microchip, and after consulting the website to find out what company it is registered with, sitting on hold with the microchip company for 5 minutes, and repeating the number several times to the person on the other end, I find out that the dog lives just two blocks over. I load him into my vehicle and proceed to the address, praying someone is home so the dog doesn’t have to be taken all the way to the shelter. Lord and behold the man answering the door is overjoyed to have his geriatric dog back. While I assist him with getting the dog into the house I also advise him that old dogs are like old people. Some become senile and start to wander off and forget where they are going, or how to get home. I make him promise me to tie his dog up from now on as it would be devastating to have the poor animal pass away without the owner, in a place he got lost, never to be found.

Fortunately we carry microchip scanners and are able to resolve most found dog calls in the field. If they have a chip. Just another reason I wish everyone would microchip EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEIR PETS!

I get a call from the dog owner where I posted the notice earlier that day regarding the welfare check. She is now home. I drive back to the address and make contact and verify that, in fact the dog in the backyard does have access to shelter and water and appears cared for. Another report, another call closed.

One more call about a dog running loose results in not finding it after searching the area.

Finishing up some reports and saving all the body camera footage for the day finally brings me to the end of my shift. I am happy to peal the gear off and feel ten pounds lighter.

On my way home I stop at the doggie day care center to pick up my own pup and make my way home in rush hour traffic. He is passed out sleeping as soon as I make my way onto the freeway.