A perspective from the trenches
As we enter the winter months, please look out for an increase in fenced dogs escaping from their yards due to metal fatigue. As the weather turns cold, metal can become more brittle. Those cheap gate latches are prone to snapping when a large dog jumps up against the gate.
When returning loose dogs to their owners, who can’t figure out how their dog is getting out of the yard; it just might be caused by a broken latch.
Traumatic times occur in our lives that we forever remember where we were and what we were doing. I’m old enough to remember I was on the school grounds when I learned that Kennedy was assassinated, and I was a few blocks away from the Pentagon on 9/11. You might have attended the same American Humane Conference as I did. Of course, the conference shut down and the smell of burning fuel filled the air. Most of the attendees watched, as all America did, the footage of the airplanes hitting the Twin Towers. A few of us walked the few blocks to see what was happening at the Pentagon.
As the day progressed, the events hit home: what should we do? Flying home was not an immediate solution. I attended the conference with my co-workers from the ASPCA. One of our group managed to rent a van, I think the last one available. It was nuts.
On the way back to Illinois, I invented the Adventures of the Roadkill Hunter. It was a long drive. I proceeded to entertain my fellow riders with episodes of The Roadkill Hunter using my Aussie voice. As our hunter carefully approached the roadkill waiting to see if the flattened piece of fur was either dead or playing possum. After a few hundred miles, my fellow riders gave me an option to either shut up or be left on the side of the road.
When we approached the Champaign Airport, we were stopped by a police car. Clearly, an early morning encounter had not prepared the office for a van full of tire conference goers. It became obvious that the officer didn’t know what to do. Clearly, airport security was stepped up after 9/11, but the plan didn’t include how the police would handle would-be terrorists. The officer didn’t let us approach the airport, nor would he allow us to leave.
The stress in the van was high. I was smart enough not to regale my comrades with another episode of The Roadkill Hunter.
Eventually, the officer allowed us to approach the airport. I suspect that his need for a coffee break outweighed his need to hold us hostage.
When I was working in Portland Oregon, I encountered my first Constitutionalist. These folks believe that if it isn’t written in the original Constitution, it isn’t legal. We impounded this guy’s dog for running at large and he refused to allow us to vaccinate his dog for rabies. He is right, nowhere in the U.S. Constitution mentions dog vaccinations, nor does it mention running at large either. The problem was that County law prohibited me from releasing his dog without a dog license. You got it, dog licenses require a rabies vaccination. This guy wasn’t going to budge. I had to be creative so that I could give this guy back his dog.
I waited out the stray holding time when the dog became my possession. I then vaccinated ‘my’ dog. I called the guy and told him he could return to the shelter and reclaim his dog. There was no reason to stir the guy up, so I didn’t mention the vaccination.
We live in a culture in which everyone is pushing the boundaries of the authority that they will comply with. I have to count my blessings that I never had to deal with a sovereign citizen. Who knows how that would have gone?
During my first few years as an Animal Control Officer, I learned how much I didn’t know. For example, every spring I would start getting calls asking me to save songbird nests from either cats or crows. We didn’t have a cat ordinance so I decided one spring I would take on crows.
I figured I needed a way to frighten crows in the neighborhoods complaining about them. I found a tape online called The Death Cry of a Crow. Surely, that would be my ticket to frightening away the crows resting in the trees.
When the tape arrived, I drove my personal truck to the scene because it had a nice stereo system. I opened both doors and started the tape. Sure enough, it sounded like someone was choking a crow inside my truck. I sat back and watched. Well, first doors of homes in the neighborhood began to open as people came out to see what was going on inside my truck and then flocks of crows began diving at it.
I had seriously miscalculated the response to the tape. Fortunately, no one called the police, but I knew that I had to get out of the neighborhood before someone recognized me. It was a small town and I didn’t want to be in a position in which I was front page news trying to explain what I was thinking.
If you ever get the urge to drive off crows, keep in mind that crows will flock to help another crow. Lesson learned.
I caught an article in which President Biden was lamenting that the younger generation doesn’t get their news from national news services but from one another. Joe doesn’t realize that our national news services are a haven for fake news and kids think the news closer to the truth is from one another. I guess Joe doesn’t like kids getting their news from places that he can’t control. Unfortunately, our educational system has warped the minds of this source as well.
The last blog hit a nerve with me. The mention of picking up road-kill skunks reminded me of the most evil thing that I ever did. It is confession time.
I was called to a location where a guy was using leg-hold traps in his yard. He was trying to catch his neighbor’s cats and caught a skunk instead. I was so angry that the guy was using leg-hold traps on any animal. I decided to school the guy. I might have gone too far. Way too far.
I planned to tranquilize the skunk and remove it outside our city. Every time I tapped the skunk it would attempt to spray me. I was much faster in those days. It wasn’t until I returned to the neighborhood a few months later that I realized that one tap would have been overkill, but why did I have to tap it six times? The only good that came out of that is that the guy never set that trap again.
Every time I smell the odor of skunk, I feel guilty. I have to live with that. If you are ever driving through Pullman Washington and smell skunk, I am so, so , sorry.
One of the chief concerns in the animal welfare business is the disposal of dead animals. There is quite a business opportunity in disposing of the dead. But before I get on with this blog, let me provide a grave warning in dealing with skunks.
Animal control is often tasked with scraping up road kill and disposing of the bodies. Skunks are unique in that they can make you the most hated person in the community by bringing a dead skunk into your shelter for disposal. Always carry a shovel in your vehicle and bury the skunk on the roadside. Please don’t attempt to put the skunk in your vehicle or remove it from its current location. Let’s face it, the roadway will stink for months. Burying the animal will not distract from its current level of stink. Just bury it. You might think twice about bringing the shovel back with you. Your vehicle is your office. Do you want it to stink of skunk for three or four months? Bury it along the roadside. This might be the best advice I have ever given to anyone!
In Portland, we had a full-time officer driving around and picking up dead animals. We had a sweet deal with local veterinarians in which we would dispose of their animals. In return, the veterinarians agree to treat any animal that an animal control officer brought to them. It was a great deal because we did not have a veterinarian on staff at the shelter.
There are four methods of disposing of dead animals:
Incineration. This is a costly way to burn animals. It might be the most respectable manner to deal with disposal. Having an incinerator is problematic if your shelter is in a neighborhood. Even though the best incinerators have secondary burners to burn the smoke coming from an animal, it is a foul smell. I can recall seeing someone from the local Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) sitting in front of our animal shelter in Milwaukee watching the smoke come out of our smoke stack. Incinerators can be a problem.
Landfill. It used to be pretty common to take dead animals to the local landfill; but, as time has gone by, fewer and fewer landfills will accept animals.
Rendering. Some companies pick up animals to be rendered into cosmetics. It isn’t commonly available, and it is personally frightening that I might be kissing my wife who is wearing lipstick of an animal that I once killed.
Burial. Some humane societies have cemeteries in which people can bury their pets. Given the volume of animals that animal shelters were once killing made burial cost prohibited.
Today, our State announced that they may not be able to perform the killing of an inmate due to a drug shortage. We don’t do a lot of lethal injections, so experiencing a drug shortage seems silly. The drug, or drugs of choice are ketamine, fentanyl, and potassium chloride. We all like our special cocktails.
I bring up this issue because animal shelters experienced a shortage of sodium pentobarbital many years ago. The shortage lasted over six months. I have always required that we have a six-month supply on hand at all times. After the storage, I changed that requirement to a year’s supply.
Although animal shelters are euthanizing fewer animals now, you can imagine the problem of shelter overcrowding should you stop euthanizing altogether. I was trained early in the Boy Scouts to be prepared. You should take inventory of your supplies and ensure you can meet a supply shortage. Carrying a six-month supply might seem excessive until you are hit with a supply shortage. Be prepared.
UPDATE
It seems that the guy’s attorneys sued the State against their cocktail Du Jour claiming that it was an untested concoction. That is the problem with fad concoctions. I’ve seen plenty in our business for remote chemical capture. They are asking the State to kill their client using the tried and true sodium pentobarbital that we have used in our business for years. I suspect the one downside of sodium pentobarbital is that it might burn upon administration, but I can’t say for sure because I’ve never used it on myself. But to be clear, I always anesthetized animals first before administering sodium pentobarbital.
Although, personally, since people are killing themselves every day with fentanyl, I think the State could find someone on the street to test drive this new cocktail. In the animal welfare business we seem to have a thing for using Acepromazine. With the fast reversal when using Acepromazine, I always thought that you get the same results using water in the cocktail. And who would be stupid enough to do that? That’s a hint for the State to not consider adding Acepromazine to their new fancy kill juice. And using Ketamine… whose idea was that? It’s like they got this recipe from their local drug pusher. But to be honest, I used Ketamine in my anesthesia cocktail.
7/26/24 Update:
Prison officials are reporting that the cost of obtaining sodium pentobarbital is going to cost our prison system $200k for the upcoming execution. Having overseen animal shelter budgets for years, someone desperately needs to audit our prison system. It is no wonder that government has become so expensive. A $20 bottle of sodium pentobarbital is enough to execute a dozen inmates; where is the rest of the money going?
8/23/24 Update:
According to the news, the total cost of the execution is over $288k. As mentioned above, the prison system is claiming that it costs $200k for sodium pentobarbital. It would be so much cheaper if we just farmed out the euthanasia to our local veterinarians. I just couldn’t let this drop, so I suggested to our State Officials that maybe an audit was in order. I didn’t hear back from either of my State representatives. Maybe this is just normal business in my State.
In our business, we depend on other corporate organizations to meet our software needs. For many years, I used Adobe products to assist me in designing marketing material. If you spend any time on YouTube, you’ll find Adobe being criticized over their corporate greed. It has been a long time in coming. Unfortunately for Adobe, there are other comparable products. I stopped using Adobe when they first started their subscription service. I like to be able to buy a product and not have to keep paying ransom to continue using the product.
I recently opened a spreadsheet file and got a notice from Microsoft that my Excel registration was lost. I could probably search for it, but why bother? Microsoft is following in Adobe’s footsteps by demanding that I switch to their ransom (subscription) service. Like Adobe, Microsoft thinks it has the only products out there. I knew this day was coming, so several years ago I bought a license to the bundle offered by WordPerfect. The Excel file opened perfectly in Quattro Pro.
Budgets are tight. If you believe you are being held hostage to your software, start looking for alternatives. You might be shocked to find a number of open-source (free) business software that is available to you. These companies are not holding the gun against your head as they think they are doing. Put them in their place.
I use Corel products for most of my graphic needs. Affinity is the suggested replacement for Adobe Photoshop. Although I have Affinity, I usually turn to Corel’s Painter or Paintshop Pro. I only mention this because I recall that I got the WordPerfect suite through the Corel software. If you decide to switch to WordPerfect, order the upgrade version if you are using another business suite. Most companies recognize that your switch from (say) Word to WordPerfect is considered an upgrade in their eyes and you can get the software at half price, around $150.
Corel has a slick plan in which you have the choice of buying the product or renting it. You can buy Corel Painter for $150 or you can rent it for $100 per year. The notion is that if you always buy the newest version of a product, then renting it is cheaper because the software is usually updated every year. With Corel, I find that buying aound Christmas seems to offer the sweetest deals. But, in my old age, I seem to be fine using a version that is one or two years out of date. And don’t become like me and feel the need of buying every brush that is available. They just take up too much diskspace and slow up the loading of the software. Take if from me, having all of the available brushes will never make you an artist.
I have to take issue with a headline in today’s news: “Feral Wolf-Hybrid Dogs.” The article is about public health officials conducting a welfare check on an old woman who found that she was living with 40 feral wolf-hybrid dogs. The dogs were seized and euthanized. My issue is pondering whether a wild species being bred into a domestic species can legitimately be identified as feral. A feral animal starts domestic and is turned out by its owner to become wild. A wolf-hybrid is not a feral animal because it was genetically born wild.
Walk back with me a few years… say maybe 30 years when there was a fad of owning wolf-hybrid dogs. Public health officials announced that no tests can be performed to determine if the rabies vaccination administered to dogs would be effective on wolf-hybrids. Even vaccinated for rabies, wolf-hybrid dogs would have to be treated as an unvaccinated animal. The problem with unvaccinated animals biting a human is that the animal would have to be tested for rabies following the incident.
Rabies testing of animals is very hard on the tested animal. It requires that the brain is removed so that tissue can be observed to be infected. In all of the years that I have worked in animal control, I have yet to see an animal that we could put back together. Although, many of the biting animals that we tested actually became better pets after the test.
It was interesting to note that following the public health announcement, the next round of licensing applications saw much fewer dogs being identified as wolf-hybrids. Those who had dogs that were obviously wolf-hybrids were surrendered to individuals who created wolf-hybrid sanctuaries. I was never surprised by reports of these sanctuary owners being eaten by their dogs under their care. You breed in wild, you get wild.
As a species, we never grew smart enough to understand that genetics plays a major role in the behavior of the dogs that we turn into pets. It is that ignorance that becomes job security for those of us who work in Animal Control.