Overload

It’s been a crazy couple of weeks. This post is the result of the many stresses that currently reside inside my brain, traveling into my neck and shoulders and making my muscles ache. The post will not be pretty, or grammatically correct. It is just a purge of thoughts and emotions that will hopefully still my mind after sharing.

Like so many of us, I have a job that can truly stress me out at times, and it is hard to find strength to keep going.

I am someone who is only contacted when there is a problem or complaint. I am then tasked with solving the problem or complaint, preferably in the manner that the complainant deems appropriate.

Showing up to a house and getting an immediate reaction of disdain, fear or anger by the home owner is tiring. Being pulled into a million different directions at once and still required to function at my best is tiring. Juggling several cases and calls at once, while simultaneously taking on new work is tiring. Being constantly understaffed is tiring. Getting very little support from people in charge is tiring. Always being a problem solver for others is tiring.

Since my last post we have weathered some heavy snow here in Michigan. We went from a dry and mild winter to sudden low temperatures and non stop snow for several days. Before the snow we had a fair amount of welfare calls about dogs or cats left outside in the cold, dog on dog issues since people were taking advantage of the weather and walking. And of course dog bites. Always so many dog bite reports. Then the snow came and the world slowed down for a moment. People and their pets stayed inside and holed up. This time I received calls about someone keeping farm animals in the house. Turns out it was only one elderly, sweater wearing, pet pig and the other pets all had adequate shelter outside. The dog bites slowed a bit since no one interacted too much with the outside world.

I worked a cruelty case that was quite tedious and found me stuck in the snowy driveway of the accused after a lengthy interview. Not a great place to be when you just want to get the hell out of there. After navigating the snowy roads for a week, and gripping the steering wheel until my fingers hurt, the temperatures let up and the roads thawed out enough to make life a little less miserable around here.

As the weather improved, the call load went up. And up, and up. Between shift changes and people taking vacations, we had several days of only two people taking animal control calls for the entire county. Kent County is the 4th largest county (of 83) in Michigan, and with a population of over 650,000 it is also the 4th most populous county in the state. Then the weather got really nice, and everyone went outside. Every dog was running loose. And our call load exploded. This past Wednesday I found myself working the entire county alone. Had it not been for a kind dispatcher who took mercy on me, I would have surely lost my shit. She cut off new calls an hour before end of shift to allow me to catch up with the 7 already holding. As mentioned before, our department is completely understaffed and there is not much help from the top. So I pulled out the little sanity and energy I had left and finished that insane day. I went home and had some wine and vented to my very understanding husband.

One of those days I started my day with a husky and ended my day with a husky. An early morning call had me driving to the south where a husky was seen hit by a car outside of a school. When I arrived the callers pointed to the bushes in someone’s front yard where the animal had limped to. She was a little female and clearly in pain. Wrapping her muzzle with a leash to keep her from biting in pain, she was loaded up and scanned. She had a microchip. Great, all I have to do is contact the owner, who was no doubt worried sick, and they can take her to a vet. Once I finally made contact with the owner I was told she can’t leave work and has no one to meet me. Asking how the dog was doing also did not seem to be a priority in her life. So I took the scared little lady to the shelter where our veterinarian was able to attend to her and figure out treatment.

The day went on with the usual busy call load, and just before end of shift I was asked to respond to a scene where police and ambulance responded to a vicious dog bite that had just occurred. This was one of those days where only two of us worked the road and we were scattered around the county. I got there just as a Sargent from the local police department confined the dog to a catch pole. The huge husky had blood on his white fur, was biting the stick and writhing about. We quickly loaded the beast into a cage in my vehicle. Turns out the dog bit a 16 year old boy in the home. The dog had just been reclaimed from the animal shelter an hour earlier and attacked the boy as he was trying to put a collar on him. So back to the shelter he went for the mandatory quarantine period. This time the family signed the animal over for euthanasia and I learned from shelter staff that the dog had been pretty sketch the whole time he was at the shelter previously. On my way out that night I asked one of the staff if the small husky female, that was hit by a car and I had brought in earlier that morning, was reclaimed by the owner. I was told the owner is likely going to surrender the dog.

As I’ve said in previous posts, this job is not black and white. It is not always neat and tidy with happy endings. It is just life. It’s messy and, more often than not, not fair to the animals involved. People in my profession have a front row seat to these tragedies every day.