Winter

Suddenly I realize my hands are getting numb and release the grip on the steering wheel just a little. Breathe. A car swerves in front of me, and I tap the brakes a few times slowing down as I can feel the tires slide slightly. Not only is this careless idiot squeezing himself into the space I purposely had left between myself and the car in front of me, but he didn’t have his headlights on. I continue gripping the wheel, staring straight ahead and praying I’m still in my lane as no lines are visible under the inches of slush that have now accumulated on the road.

Year after year, winter after winter.

Living in a cold place like Michigan is difficult enough, but having a job that requires you to also drive in the weather all day long comes with more challenges than I am willing to put up with most days. To put it bluntly…I hate it.

But here I am, driving this animal control vehicle through yet another snowstorm on my way to a call for service.

I pull up to an address where a caller reported a small dog laying near her trash cans behind the house. I follow her and find the small Chihuahua dog frozen solid between her backyard fence and trash bin. I peel some of the frozen leaves off his tiny body before wrapping him in the towel the caller had graciously provided. At the car I sweep my microchip scanner over his body and am surprised to register one. After some tedious searching online, and connecting to the microchip company, I found the address to be only two houses away from where I was. And then I remembered seeing a Facebook post about a Chihuahua someone had reported missing. Sure enough I found it and matched it up with the deceased dog I now had in my possession. Unfortunately no one answered the door at the owners home so I transported his body to the shelter and facilitated the return to owner later that day. Contacting someone and being the first person to have to tell them that their pet was found deceased never gets easier, no matter how many times you do it.

This tiny dog had wandered only two houses from its own yard and froze to death. Winter can be so cruel.

We recently had several days of severe cold weather in our area and as you can imagine, the calls regarding welfare checks on dogs multiplied during that time. I will never understand why humans choose to own dogs if they are not part of a family or farm. The ones who are simply tied up outside in a yard somewhere and forgotten. The ones who barely have a shelter, or none at all.
The ones who sit thirsty in front of a frozen water dish all day.

Dogs come in so many breeds, and there are definitely some who can withstand even the coldest of temperatures, but the majority of our domestic pets rely on us to survive.

When dogs are not restricted to a tie out or fenced in a yard, it is quite remarkable what even our domestic dogs are capable of doing to survive the elements. Recently our department was called about a pitbull female who was running stray in a particular neighborhood in the city. After several calls about the same dog it was discovered that she had made a den underneath a large tree on the hillside behind a church. This was a steep hill and it was dangerous to attempt chasing after a fast running dog here. This was made worse by the winter weather arriving. Live traps were set, but the smart girl knew where to find food and avoided our traps.

We found she had birthed puppies that were now living in this den as well. Simply removing the pups would only deny them the very important mother dog milk and put them at risk. The female dog would continue to evade our capture and possibly have more litters later on. We needed a new plan.

I contacted a woman known to help capture pets that are difficult to trap. She owns some special equipment, among them a large kennel set up with a door trigger to catch dogs that refuse to go in traditional live traps. We agreed on a day and she met me in the church parking lot to set up this large kennel. The female dog had run from her den as we arrived and watched us cautiously from afar. While they set up the trap and laser triggers, I busied myself climbing the hill to the den to retrieve the pups that we would use as ‘bait’.

I was surprised how deep the den was dug, perfectly formed under the roots of this large oak tree. There were downed branches across the top, providing the perfect cover and keeping any wind out. The den was clean and lined with soft dirt. Two small, chunky pitbull pups stared up at me as I lowered myself to the ground. One of them even growled, and I couldn’t help but laugh at how tough this 4 week old baby thought he was. The mother dog likely had more that just these two pups, but they were the ones that survived and thrived. They were so chunky that I had to make two trips up and down that hill because they didn’t both fit in my arms at the same time. Wrapped in blankets, being handled by humans for the first time in their short lives, they accepted our love. They were placed in a crate, with many blankets for warmth, inside the large kennel trap that was now set. It took just over an hour for mom dog to be brave enough to come down to the parking lot and enter the kennel trap to get to her babies.

My fear that she would be feral and aggressive towards people quickly dissipated when I saw the trapper scratching her under the chin through the kennel wire. Mother dog was more than willing to be leashed and taken to my warm animal control vehicle. Her babies received some snuggles from the local church people who had been following this saga, before being loaded up next to mom.

This mother dog was a short haired breed, easily affected by the harsh winter weather if simply tied up outside with nowhere to escape to. She had the advantage of being able to fend for herself, and she showed us just how remarkably resilient and ingenious animals truly are. Despite being a domestic dog she instinctively knew how to make a den, not just for herself, but one adequate enough to keep newborn pups from freezing to death in these cold temperatures.

I started this blog post writing about the poor Chihuahua frozen to death, and am ending it with my own unfortunate winter incident. Though I am happy to report not to be frozen solid, I did slip on ice last week and am now nursing a fractured ankle. After so many years of sliding and slipping through my work days, I finally met my match. The patch of ice at the dog owners home, where I fell checking on dogs left in the yard, only confirmed my disdain for this season.

Perhaps one day I won’t have to worry about these life altering temperatures and weather patterns anymore.