Straight Outta Animal Control

Maybe you’re privileged enough to work for a department that has an Animal Control Officer. And if you are, it won’t make much difference because they’re probably never around when you need one.

You may think I’m psychic or that I’m reading your mail, but I’m not. Part of the skillset that departments look for when hiring ACOs is their ability to not answer the radio or to create schedules that they never follow.

Unglamorous

Animal calls are never the heroic, awe-inspiring scenes you’d find on television with the part-time-model-full-time-cop in a freshly pressed uniform walking in slow motion out of the front door of some slum while cradling an armful of golden retriever puppies with a pair of bulging biceps and huge pecs as Sarah McLachlan’s Angel plays in the background.

No.

They’re annoying, untimely, inconvenient, and rather lackluster. For me, the first animal calls I handled involved a skunk, a goat, and a porcupine — not all at the same time, mind you, though that would have made a slightly more interesting story.

The Skunk

You’ve got to love concerned citizens with nothing but a cell phone and time on their hands. And by ‘love’ I mean if you found a magic lamp and a genie you’d use all three wishes to ruin their lives. But I digress.

Anyway, one night on the midnight shift I was dispatched to an apartment complex for a skunk with a jar on its head. A call to which I actually responded. Yes, you read the right. I was new, young, and naive and hadn’t yet mastered the three magical letters: G.O.A.* I rolled into the parking lot and spotted it near the back of the lot by the dumpster. There was the little guy lumbering around with a McFlurry cup on his head. He was walking into things while intermittently trying to paw the cup and dome-shaped lid off his head. It was hilarious. And yet, somehow, I felt compelled to get involved, prompted by some overdeveloped sense of duty.

I sat in my cruiser and watched him for a minute as I strategized in my mind on how I would pull it off — both literally and figuratively. Then, another cruiser pulled up next to me and rolled down his passenger side window, which is the universal sign for cops to talk. I rolled down my window, and with a sense of relief that I wasn’t going to have to do this thing alone, asked, Did they send you to this call, too?

Him laughing: Ya, no. I just came to watch.

Me: Rolled up my window and drove away.

With no help I hatched a plan that involved a long, dead stick that I had found on the ground. Part one of the plan was to use the stick to pry the cup of the skunk’s head. Part two involved me running. By the time my plan had been fully formulated, the skunk had cornered himself up against a stockade fence with nowhere to go. That was my chance.

My useless partner watched from afar as I picked up the six foot long dead branch from the ground and walked around the back side of the stockade fence. I crept over to where the skunk was and reached over the top of the fence with the stick, put the end of it between his head and the dome-shaped lid of the McFlurry. With a flick of the wrist to pop the cup off, the stick promptly snapped in two, and I ran for it. Further investigation would later reveal that the cup had come off but the lid remained. What was now a cone of shame still encircled the skunk’s head and there’s a good chance it’s still on there to this very day.

The Goat

You know it’s going to be a weird day when you get a call for a goat hanging out at a gas station on a sunny Saturday afternoon. Personally, if I came across a goat at a Circle K I would point and laugh and then go about my business. Calling the police would never even make it onto my radar. But, then again, I’m not the general public who thinks every problem, no matter how minor, needs a taxpayer-funded solution, i.e., the police. Little did I know that when I signed on that day it wouldn’t be long before I was served a pretty thick slice of humble pie.

But now, back to the goat. First of all, whoever put the call in should be slapped. Second of all, there was no way I could have even pretended that the goat was G.O.A. because some Johnny Do-Gooder had tied the goat to the guardrail around the Circle K parking lot. Thanks a lot.

I pulled up, looked at the goat, and the goat looked at me. I could tell he was an ornery fellow and stubborn as a mule (mule references are a major insult to goats, FYI). With my intimate knowledge of the town I knew that the most likely place he had come from was a house on a hill about half a mile down the road. It had a little farm — if you could call it that — but was more like a feral farm animal sanctuary than an actual farm. Even if the goat didn’t belong there, I decided that’s where he would go.

I couldn’t coax the goat into the back of my cruiser so I had to walk him. Yes, that’s right, I walked him down the side of a busy road out in full view of the public for all to see. There I was in uniform holding one end of a rope, the other end cinched around the neck of a stupid looking goat, beet red and completely embarrassed (me, not the goat). It felt like the least manly thing I had probably ever done, at least while in uniform.

When the goat and I arrived at the end of the long hilly driveway I didn’t even bother checking to see if anyone was home. I tied the rope to a clothesline pole as fast as I could, did an about-face, and marched myself back to the safety and anonymity of my cruiser.

The Porcupine

If you’ve ever asked the question, Are all supervisors this out of touch? the answer is, Yes.

People who pay taxes live on cul-de-sacs. It’s true. And people who pay taxes pay your salary and therefore require us to do dumb things on their behalf or at their request. Because: small town politics.

Sometimes city people move to more rural communities and aren’t familiar with things like nature, and, of course, part of nature includes wildlife. And though many animals are wild, not all wild animals are dangerous. For example, porcupines. But city people who live in rural communities and pay taxes don’t know this, therefore, they call the police.

Porcupines are harmless, clumsy animals that bebop about their daily business. Contrary to the belief of some city people, they cannot shoot their quills at you and they are in fact active during hours of daylight. But instead of educating these taxpayers with silly things like facts, we, as police, just pander to them and do whatever to make them happy.

I pulled my cruiser over and parked at the end of the cul-de-sac where I was greeted with impatient stares and sighs of relief by what appeared to be an entire village-worth of people. Anxious arms raised from all around the cul-de-sac and index fingers extended to point out the blight on their exclusive neighborhood: a porcupine foraging for grubs.

The village elder approached me and gave me the rundown. The porcupine must be rabid, he declared, because it was “staggering” around. That, and porcupines were nocturnal, and only nocturnal animals that were rabid came out during the day. Therefore, it was basically a porcupine zombie and it had to be dealt with … because of the children. Children would die if I didn’t do something.

I attempted to alleviate the man’s fears using the ancient technique of logic and reason, but it was to no avail. Before long my supervisor called me and wanted an update (don’t ask me why) and I told him there was nothing to do here, everything was fine — there was nothing wrong with the porcupine. Because supervisors are out of touch, he told me to catch it, and then let it go somewhere else.

Me: Catch it? That’s your suggestion? It has quills.

Him: Scoop it into a barrel or something.

Me: Right. A barrel. Why didn’t I think of that?

I got off the phone and reluctantly asked if anyone had a trash barrel to spare. You know the village elder did. I couldn’t believe what I was about to attempt. I was a cop for goodness sake, not Steve Irwin the Crocodile Hunter. And where the heck was Animal Control!?

So, with approximately several thousand people watching I snapped my expandable baton open and went to task. I had the trash barrel in one hand and my baton in the other as I approached the foul beast. With great skill and dexterity I held the barrel down on its side and corralled the pointy little guy with my baton, ultimately flicking him up and over the lip and safely sliding down to the bottom of the rubber trash can. I don’t recall an applause, but there probably was one, perhaps even a standing ovation. After all, I did save the children from contracting rabies, followed by likely death.

I slid the porcupine-laden trash can into the back seat of my cruiser and had a conversation with Porky the entire ride to the edge of town. I apologized for the ignorant public, my stupid supervisor, and for ruining his lunch. I swore to him that someday I would raise awareness for marginalized porcupines everywhere who just wanted to be treated with dignity and be given the same opportunities as other wild animals such as squirrels and sparrows. I think he heard what I had to say and we were able to come to an understanding before I let him go. We may have even bonded.

And there you have it. We need ACOs for all of the above reasons. And being straight outta Animal Control sucks.

__________________________

Thanks for reading! Do you have a story that you think we could learn from and that you’d like to share with Johnny Tactical nation? Fill out the contact form and include your name, rank, and department, or email it to [email protected] and follow these guidelines:

– It must be a firsthand account
– True
– Have a lesson, principle, or tactic to apply
– Cleaned of names, dates, and places
– Include your call sign

If your story is selected and published in our blog you’ll get the credit using your call sign and we’ll send you a free Live Tactical t-shirt!

*Cop lingo for Gone On Arrival. Now you know, and knowing is half the battle.