Animal Control on 'Old' TV

Its been a long time since the last post. Life's been happening, a lot of travel for me the last couple of months!

Today I was just going through shows during lunch at HULU.com and I came across the episode from the 1970's TV show "Emergency" titled "905-WILD".
I vaguely recalled the episode, I used to watch Emergency with my family, it was junior high age for me back then. I've probably seen it since it was shown 34 years ago, "Emergency" was rerun at various times on different L.A. TV stations long before TV Land and the Internet. I just remembered something about Tigers on that specific episode and that it had been an attempt by Jack Web to 'spin off' another show by highlighting an organization like Animal Control as he'd successfully done with Paramedics for "Emergency!" Didn't work for Animal Control though and that late episode of the 1974/75 season didn't go anywhere.
It was interesting to see again though! I didn't remember Mark Harmon, now famous as "Gibbs" on "NCIS" was in the episode, as the partner of another actor I remember as being in many of Clint Eastwood's "Dirty Harry" movies from that same general era. It is very typical Jack Webb of the late 60's early 70's like "Dragnet" and "Adam 12" were like (I liked those shows too!), the cute kid, the nice old man, everybody has a short speech, and lots of 'looks' as things happen. Since it happens through Emergency, there's all the show regulars, Gage, DeSoto, all the Doctors and Nurse 'Dixie' at "Rampart General". There's even a supposed surgery on a pygmy goat that at the end doesn't even have any evidence of anything being done to it! But the 'cute' kid and 'kindly' old man don't notice, they're just glad the hospital 'saved' their little goat. Of course at the expense of contaminating a hospital and who exactly was going to pay for all the stuff used for the goat?
Oh well, it was TV in 1975. Look at it from that perspective and enjoy! Watch it RIGHT NOW at www.hulu.com, it's season 4 episode 22 in their collection. The site says it will be available until September next year (2010) so you've got time. Mark Harmon looks so YOUNG! Beatles haircut and all, I wonder if he remembers doing the show?
Other than the acting I did like seeing animal control trucks just like what San Bernardino county had when I started in 1981. Back then though our trucks were all shades of browns and tans, didn't go 'all white' trucks until the mid 1980's. But in 1981 there were a couple of Dodges with the same cage boxes and high mounted rear spare tire. Thing I remember most is that those early 1980's Dodges would lock up and slide sideways in a heartbeat! No anti-lock yet!


Now of course with Animal Planet and all the news events that have and continue to still occur, public awareness of animal control is way up there. In 1975 on that show and through most of the years of my own career nobody really knew about the job except those people that called or who were "regulars". I remember that lack of knowledge made it great for weekends and holidays back then. Nobody knew much about animal control let alone we worked 7 days a week and 365 days a year. So back then you'd work your butt off during the week and be able to relax on the weekend, Saturdays for me, and get caught up with calls to check back on or just plain have an easy day. Saturdays were often the day of the shift you could have a chance to visit with the co-workers without getting calls or having to hide from the supervisors since back then there usually weren't any on then. Or it gave a person the opportunity to visit with friends while getting paid for it. Almost everyone that came to visit with me on my days off was working one of their regular days!
I know of many people that only visited with friends and such while at work, why not? You didn't have anything to do right then and you not only got paid for being there but it didn't cost you any of your own gas or time on your days off! It did get abused though, even worse than what I've just described. Shopping while at work, doing Laundry while at work, you know- drive up to the laundromat and unload your clothes out of a cage and go to it! Actually a person did get written up for doing that, now years later and she's still there, a supervisor. And she used to do worse than that when I was still there. She'd set up early morning patrols and ride out with an ACO to some of the far flung places in San Bernardino County, she'd sleep all the way there then they'd patrol a hour or so then use the 4X4 abilities of the trucks to explore for ROCKS!
Her county supplied pick-up truck was always loaded down with rocks or things she'd find while driving around the desert.

Don't be shocked reading that, this was the 1980's and you can't do that anymore. All the trucks have GPS monitoring (for this?) and you have to account for almost all of your work hours now a days.
Yes, I was lucky, and I remember thinking so then, it was a great job! Now I feel like myself and the friends I had then were in the 'Golden Era' of San Bernardino County Animal Control.
Tad

It's been awhile!

Wow last post on this blog was back in August!!

It has been a pretty busy last couple of months, but I do want to get back to working on these recollections.
In fact next Monday November 2nd, will be 28 years to the same day that I'd started with San Bernardino County Animal Control. Taking a job that I thought I might enjoy "until something better came along!"
And so around 25 years later I guess nothing else much better came along until we decided to retire early and 'get outta Dodge' before the California economy really tanked as bad as it has to this point.

Not that there were not any options over those decades, I had applied and interviewed for two other animal control agencies over the years. I was looking at getting to a new area of California back then. In the overall scheme of life as I sit here in Northern Idaho, I surely can not complain about where I've ended up, so far! But back in the mid 1980's I was looking at other options.
I had first applied to work for Merced County animal control. I wound up interviewing all the way to the end. Three trips from the San Bernardino area to the small county near Fresno. I was able to fly myself there twice (I'm a private pilot) but had to drive once because of bad weather and fog in the big San Joaquin valley.
I ultimately turned them down because they wanted me to work for them at what would have worked out to be an almost $600.00 a month cut in pay!!! Yes, I was told I'd get much of it back with on-call and overtime, and the old story of how it "costs less to live here" but it was just too much of a cut so I had to tell them "thanks, but no thanks".
Second and last place I tried was for a position with Santa Barbara County. I had two of the interviews there, I think I might have enjoyed living in that area, especially at the time. Although as crowded and drought and fire prone as it has become and with the fore mentioned current economy troubles of the state, I sure wouldn't like it now! I'd always liked going through the area or staying there to visit. I flew myself up to the Goleta Airport and rented a car for the final interview, made it kind of an expensive afternoon, but there, the interview and back in just 3 1/2 hours instead of at least a full day for the round trip.
I've always felt like I lost the job because I just wasn't sure of their local ordinances on the oral interview.
Maybe, but as I found out when I was in on interviews for new hires at our department during my years as a supervisor, it could be as simple as looks, attitude, or just 'holding the job' for an employee to move up in, that could keep a hopeful outsider from getting the job. I know, it was always supposed to be on that persons merit, more often than not it just flat wasn't! It was all FIRST IMPRESSIONS!
I know of a few people that interviewed fantastically only to be lousy when they actually started! One still works there, should have NEVER passed probation, but her supervisor became her "bud" and gave her all kinds of special breaks just because she liked her.
Twenty minutes was all they got, so it was first impressions, a resume that sometimes was just plain unbelievable, yet most of the time people were decided on right at that time, right after they'd left the interview room. They were kept on pins and needles for up to a week, but the decision had been made then.

Our daughter Laura kept up an animal control career until just recently when she was hired on with AT&T. She likes animal control work much better but after working six days a week or more, for over two years at minimum wadge and in honestly lousy working conditions for Scott County in Iowa, she just had to go to someplace with 'normal' hours and better pay, and finally landed the job.
Her last field call though cost her a lot, it was an after hours or on-call response to impound a couple of aggressive pit bulls that had been contained in an RP's (Reporting Parties) yard. She arrived, the local P.D. (police department) officer had cleared the scene, Laura attempted to handle the call herself without adequate lighting or any backup people (she wasn't allowed to call for backup by her supervisor!), and in her attempt she was badly bitten by the male of the two dogs. Severe bite wounds to her left calf, she'll have very bad scarring from incident. And so far the department there is giving her problems over what is clearly a workers comp claim for her hospital visit after she'd gotten the dogs and impounded them at the shelter!!

I really don't know of anyone in an animal career that hasn't been bitten by something! I had 5 bites over my career, seems like they all got progressively worse to the last time I was bitten on a Sunday back in July of 2000. At that call I slipped on wet grass at the residence and an aggressive Rottweiler that they'd called about got me on the head while I was down on the ground. 13 staples across the back of my head left a nice scar and a hope that I never go bald!
Stacy was bitten a few times too. Her worst was at a call in the desert where the dog ran right at her from under a garage door as it was being opened and attacked her, bit her on the inside of her thigh. It would have been much worse had she not had another ACO there to assist. He was able to get the dog after it bit her.

I knew employees of S.B. County that had good lawyers and would try to sue the dog owner anytime they were bitten. One guy went to the Bahama's on vacation twice on his booty from bites to his 'bootie'!
The one time I tried that, I got an attorney that just told me it was "part of the job" and that was that.

Until next time, and maybe not so long! Tad

My first thirty seconds of fame

Still on my License Checker era, I recall when I was shown in taped and aired scenes of the department for the CBS channel 2 evening news. This was in late 1981 or early 1982 during the height of the first Pit Bull hysteria that was sweeping all across the country at the time. Locally in the city of Colton a mail carrier had been bitten by a pit bull and had died from the subsequent blood poisoning he had developed. It was all over the local news but had also made the national news.

Pat English, then the program manager for the department wanted to jump on the publicity bandwagon of the Colton event. Since we didn't have the city of Colton, it was decided that the closest area with a bad loose dog problem to make a show of was a county community called Bloomington. It was always a bad problem area before, during and after this time. Pat decided to have a maximum enforcement effort and contacted the local and L.A. area news stations to announce the upcoming date.
The city of Fontana supplied their one and only ACO and it was arranged to have almost the entire field staff on hand. So the big day (morning) and we all met at 5 am at the main office in San Bernardino and all convoyed out the 30 minute drive to Bloomington. All the ACO's would be patrolling the streets of the area, all us license checkers including our supervisor were to start checking licenses at every residence beginning at 6 am, the earliest we could legally 'disturb the peace' by knocking on the doors of the residences.
No breaks, no excuses, any dogs out loose were to be picked up and we were told "license or cite" by the big boss himself. He as well as many of the staff were hoping to get their activities taped so Pat was actually there and in a new suit and there were quite a few cleaned and pressed uniforms of the ACO's and new permed hair styles on several of the women License Checkers.
We all got out there and of course at first nothings out loose. CBS had sent out a video crew and they got The supervisor Lynda and the people with her on tape waking up some residents to check for licenses. Since there weren't any loose dogs much of the early video was us license checkers going house to house checking the licenses. I was taped citing a guy that I normally would have given a break to, he answered all the right questions so normally I would have given him the chance to find his paperwork, but that morning, at that time he got a ticket. Later on some dogs were spotted out and chased, that made for some good shots I guess. I was taped again when I was helping ACO Ed Stevens loading a caught dog into his truck cages. I was able to save it on the VCR that evening and years later transferred it to DVD so I could look at it occasionally. Ah the memories!

Behind the scenes of that morning, well yes Pat had been taped giving his big speech about the job being done etc, CBS just didn't use it! He was extremely pissed off about it for quite a while. Pat was very much the 80's yuppie boss with a "my s*** doesn't stink" attitude. He was great for getting contracts and equipment for the department, he was really terrible for working with the employees. The one thing that unified the department was the hatred of him as our boss!
In 1985 he was forced to resign (fired) for misappropriation of funds. He'd been living the high life on the county's expense and it caught up with him.
That morning I'd ridden out to Bloomington in a little Datsun Animal Control Truck with my License Checker team leader Bob, and on the way out while he was driving he sat on the radio microphone while he was talking about how much he'd liked to see several of the female employees naked and more! It was broadcast to all the vehicles, luckily for him Pat must have been too busy talking and didn't hear it or Bob would really have been in hot water!
I no longer recall how many dogs actually were picked up, it wasn't many. For a few years if any early morning patrols were done, Bloomington was almost always the first place done.

There never was a "maximum enforcement" done with the whole department again though.

My first Animal Control County job, License Checker

Taken in 1982, our station wagon in the Apple Valley area as the team leader is talking to two of the local ACO's about areas they wanted us to check.


So far I've been mainly typing about the job I spent most of my years in working for the county, an Animal Control Officer.
My first position when I was hired back in November 1981 was as an Animal License Officer. The official title was Officer, but we were all called License Checkers. When I started all I really knew was I was going to be getting $4.88 per hour! I was going to be rich!!! That's what I thought anyway, then the reality sinks in.
Before this job the most I'd ever been paid was $2.56 per hour.

The job was pretty simple, primarily just door to door canvassing in various areas to make sure that residents had current rabies shots as well as current licenses for any dogs they might own over 4 months old which was when the dog was considered an adult by the county and to be licensed.

Actually, doing the job of License Checker was as follows.
We'd all meet at the main office in San Bernardino a little before 8 am, then we'd either go over to the county 'yards' or the "team leaders" would go over to get the vehicles, then each team would pile into one of the two 9 passenger station wagons used for our job. Usually it was two teams of 4 or 5 people. We'd then drive out to wherever in the county we'd be working for that time period.
It was usually in the Mountains in the late spring and early fall when it was still hot temps in the valley areas, then the deserts, both high deserts and low deserts, were done in the winter with the valley areas taking up the rest of spring, fall, or whenever there was time to work but not enough time to go the long drives to some areas as most of the population lived in the 'greater San Bernardino' valley of the county.

When we got in the area to work for the day, first stop was...........a coffee break! We were supposed to have 15 minutes, usually it was more like 30 to 45. Then we'd go and get dropped off in a residential area and the team leader would go a few blocks away and park. We'd work our way towards the him or her and they would work in the area of the wagon until we got there. And then move on and repeat. It was just walking door to door and seeing if anyone was home and check for the shots and license for any dogs on the property.







Taken the same day as the photo above, driving West on Bear Valley road in Apple Valley. All farms and horse area then, it's all high end housing tracts now.

What made this job tough was, an Animal Control Officer was usually going out because he/she was called for something or for some kind of a complaint. As a License Checker, the majority of people felt you were invading their privacy by coming to their house asking to see they were in compliance and would resent our job. Then if they got a ticket for not having current shots and license, they'd really get upset!
If there was question or the invariable "I can't find the paperwork" from an owner, we'd make a note of the address to come back by later and when we'd get back to the wagons it would be look up to see if the information was in one of the 4 to 8 giant volumes of computer printouts of all dogs/owners licensed in the county carried in both vehicles. No portable radios or cell phones back then, only the one radio in the vehicle. If while talking to the person you got the idea that they might just be buying time and was actually trying to pull a fast one, you'd just cite them and move on. Let them figure it all out with court or when they'd come to the office to buy any licenses needed.
Back then an animal control citation had little weight behind it. Most of the courts viewed them as 'fix it' tickets and as long as you got what you needed to be legal, that was good enough, no fine. Several judges thought of animal control as a joke and they'd just dismiss any citation, others would just charge a ten dollar fine if you corrected it or not, just ten dollars. Of course we didn't advertise any of that.

Back then the licenses were all good for one year, the rabies shots could be good for two years if an adult dog, so many people would only get one thing or the other if they had to. And wouldn't bother if they 'missed' it a year, unless of course they got caught by us! By the time we left the department in 2006, licenses were available for one to three years, as was the rabies shots. But if you got a ticket it was an across the board minimum fine of $135.00, PER count! So if you had one dog over four months old with no shots or license indicated on the ticket, you were looking at fines of $270.00 plus you needed to show that you'd gotten the shots and license at a usual cost of at least $100.00, again for one dog. Add it up if you had 2, 3, or 4!!!!

Every summer then (and still done now) were the vaccination clinics at various locations all over the county. For many people it was the place they'd get the shots and license for their dogs. You'd usually get a cost break on a rabies shot, but the county never did a cost break on a license, even when they went to multiple years, it was just for convenience with that part.


Taken at a clinic at the county library in Yucaipa, you'd wait in line and start here by paying the fees then continue on and get the shots and or license.




I wound up never having to work any of the clinics, the photo above was taken when I was called out to help with crowd control at this clinic. I heard some pretty crazy stories from the employees that worked them all the time. Like so many things there was work to do, but it mixed in with a lot of goofing off. Some of the clinics would be hours away and back then there was one clinic that was an over nighter to Trona, the farthest point north west in San Bernardino county on the west side of Death Valley. But at over three hours away from San Bernardino, they'd just schedule in little clinics in obscure little towns along the way and end out in Trona. Spend the night and return the next day. The Trona clinic was a 'guys night out' for the two that went. The only summer I could have been a clinic worker I was picked with another License Checker to work as field officers. It was rotten shifts, I worked Thursday to Monday, but I got to drive around all the time and do all the things a field officer did. I also worked primarily the high desert and in the mountains for the summer. It was great! When I first started to work as a license checker the crews were still working in the High Desert, I fell in love with the area. The clean air, back then it was not crowded at all- yet. It had more seasons than the valleys did. So that first summer working in the desert and spending a lot of time there, I was in heaven! But also by working that summer as a field officer, I knew I didn't want to stay a license checker!
Actually, although we were constantly told how important we were to generating revenue to help keep the department self sufficient, license checker was really the lowest on the totem pole of animal control. And every body that was one knew it too! We also were the ones constantly told we'd be fired if we didn't produce revenue. We had the unofficial, official quotas of 'statistical goals' for each month, broken down to how many houses canvassed, how many dogs seen, license sold, citations, etc.

Personally I didn't like canvassing in the mountains at all, back in the early 1980's many of the homes were vacation homes, not the full time residences they later became when people were willing to make the drives to "get away from it all" in the mountains.
So I'd go up two to five flights of stairs to see if anybody was home only to find a vacant or not home at the time places. Back down the stairs knowing I'd have to check back another time. Many of the areas in the mountains were literally up and down the hillsides with very few level home tracts like most other locations like the deserts and valley. Exception was the Big Bear area, quite a few level areas there. Being a caldera and all!
I also didn't like all the bugs in the mountains, you couldn't eat lunch outside without fighting off all kinds of flying bugs. There were some great places for lunch in the mountains though, and the long time license checkers as well as the mountain ACO's and the area Sheriff Deputies knew them all and were very willing to tell you about the best places to have a good lunch and even save some money!

When we canvassed the low desert county areas of Yucca Valley, 29 Palms, and the little boon dock places beyond those cities, it was mainly canvass by car as we'd drive from place to place because most were several acres, or even miles, apart. We'd take turns putting down the guessed address as most places didn't have a street address back then.

I usually drove when we went to these way out places and the others would all sleep in the wagon. I'd wake them up when we got to wherever we'd decided to have a break before we'd drive out to the area to work. Same on the way back to San Bernardino, I'd drive and wake everybody up just before we got back to town.

Oh well, more later. Tad

How about some photos of Stacy too!

It isn't supposed to be all about me! After all Stacy and I both worked in the same department for about 17 years. So even though I don't have that many photos of my time there we have less of Stacy's. We do have a few though, top photo is Stacy standing next to her Dodge 4X4 diesel truck. She really liked that truck! I was driving the Ford when I went to help her at this call in Phelan.

The next two photos are of a call I met with Stacy at where this Spaniel mix had somehow gotten itself onto the beam and crawled into the girder at the California Aqueduct. We got the dog out from the space in the lower shot, and in the above photo Stacy realized that the dog was more scared than anything else so she was picking it up by hand instead of using the 'control stick' on the ground next to her.

Last shot, another view of her Dodge Animal Control truck. Stacy had always wanted to be an animal control officer and even volunteered at the Riverside Humane Society on her weekends as a kid. She was one of the best the department had! She could work anyplace and with anyone, she trained many of the people that were hired for several years.

Last set for now, various stuff

Top photo was the inside of a truck cage when we started putting this blue mat material into all the animal cages. It all started when a probationary ACO had picked up several dogs in the summertime. A very hot summer day, she was in a brown truck and the cages only had the manufacturers installed vent fans and nothing but bare metal as the cage floor. We were supposed to 'water down' the animals to keep them cool. When she got to the shelter later that afternoon, one of the dogs was in really bad shape from being basically cooked in the cage. It had burns on its feet and stomach from being on the hot metal cage floor, the heat from the catalytic converter underneath it didn't help, where else could it go?, and from just being inside the hot cage it was overheated and so it had to be taken to a vet for treatment.
When it got out to the local humane society the you know what hit the fan!!! Unfortunately for the girl, since she was still on probation she was fired for not checking up on the animals in her care. Shortly after this incident, and with the help of the humane society, the county started to install water cooled air conditioners on every trucks cage. For the inside this matting was bought, in large rolls, and cut to fit for each cage in every truck. This kept the animals off the metal floor yet could be easily taken out to hose clean the hair, poop and throw up that almost always happened with dogs and cats.

Above is a photo from 2004 or so, with Stacy driving and me going with her on a callback on a weekend. This truck was a 1/2 ton Ford and was called the "ice cream" truck because it looked so much like one! Very short cage box it only had 4 cages in the sides and in those big back doors was just a long box for dead animals. It wasn't well liked since it was a desert only truck and since the Apple Valley shelter was so far away, one couldn't carry that many animals and it was often necessary to make multiple trips to the shelter. From our area it was a 35 to 45 minute drive to the shelter! They would have been small for even the valley but they would have worked so much better there then in the expanse of the deserts. Nobody would ever listen to common sense though!!

A late 1980's morning at the County Yards and two fellow ACO' s are visiting before heading out for the day. Guy on the left is now long gone and moved on. The guy on the right is still there. Has no hair now!

Last photo is from about the same time frame, several people meeting before we went out to pick up some large animals. At the parking lot in Fontana near Valley and Sierra, I'm pretty sure a restaurant sits where these trucks were way back then.

Truck photos, again!

Vehicle 5493, the twin to my favorite Animal Control truck 5490. A 1991 Ford F-250 cloth seat, AM/FM stereo 4 speaker sound, tilt steering wheel and cruise control!!! A gigantic plus for those long desert drives. This photo was taken when I was on a late afternoon call out to the Trona area, about a 2 hour drive, one way, from the Victorville area.

The photo above, is of me arriving in the morning at the County Yards in San Bernardino in the early 1990's. In this style of cages the small rear side cages were the places to store stuff.

The worst truck I had to drive, a mid 1980's 1/2 ton Dodge with a 6 cylinder and 4 speed manual transmission. A gutless pain to drive except on flat areas. Taken out near Rancho Cucamonga in Etiwanda. That entire area is all houses and shopping centers now.

Same area as the above photo and in the area of the long gone thing that made Rancho Cucamonga famous, other than Jack Benny, the grape vineyards. This was shortly after I'd been assigned 5490. The single opening in the back was for dead animals. Open it up and pull out an aluminum box to put the dead animals inside. Although tall it was only two wheel drive. It was the first truck that actually had good range with dual gas tanks. The later trucks came with around 30 gallon single tanks.

Some Shelter and other things; photos

Top photo is one of the then brand new, not even yet open to the public, Devore animal shelter. This was actually the second one built, first one finished. It had been in the wooden framed stage when unusually strong but not uncommon Santa Ana winds blew through from the Cajon Pass. It was totally and literally blown away!
It had taken over three years get the money and to find a place and get a shelter built. Before this was done we had to impound animals from the San Bernardino city pound to the Riverside Humane Society to shelters in Ontario. It was ultimately built on a section of land at an old dump site in the Devore area on County owned land to save money. Now I really do not get why so many people forgot over the years, but when we were all told about the shelter finally getting built and at the dump location in about 1984, then department head Pat English said it was only to be a "temporary" location. Due to it being built on a dump site made it to where no permanent structures were to be there for more than ten years! Of course it's still there today. Its been expanded and renovated several times over the years. For a long time there were plans to move in a bunch of trailer offices and make the place the operational home of the department. That hasn't happened, but I was told in talking to a friend of mine that still works for the department that the shelter has been getting another 'face lift' for the last year. 23 years, I guess it will be there forever!

Above is a photo of the only Alligator that was actually impounded by the department. It had been a person in Chino's exotic pet, until he'd gotten arrested for something that is. Then it was picked up and taken to Devore for a few days. I actually no longer remember what exactly happened to it, the owner couldn't get it back, it wasn't legal to keep it. But unlike so many exotic pets that usually wound up being destroyed, I think this one went to a reptile park in L.A.

This photo is when I went to the Phelan area with a stock trailer to help pick up two very large Pot Bellied pigs. Supervisors had pick up trucks in those days to be able to carry equipment like the dog trap I had in this one at the time. I carried can food and other stuff in the tool box behind the cab.

Bottom photo is from the late 1980's of one of my early Radio Boxes. A plastic tool box loaded with an AM/FM Cassette auto deck with 4 inch speakers. Underneath that is a Cobra 40 channel CB radio, great for truck to truck and about 2 to 5 miles range. On top is a Radio Shack 200 channel scanner. All powered by by a 12 volt plug into the cigarette lighter plug. On the front is a cup holder and on the seat next to it is a hand held scanner and some home made music or story tapes. A few years down the road it was XM satellite radio all the time and Ham radios for their better clarity and range for me and Stacy to stay in touch. With mountain repeaters, I could talk to Stacy up in the desert while I was down in the San Bernardino valley.
At the very end it was still XM radios but no more radio boxes. Didn't need them anymore because the trucks were all finally equipped with decent sounding in dash radios with 4 speaker sound and we had cell phones to stay in touch by then.

Still More Photos

Photo of all the trucks at the command post at about 6:00 AM. Sept. 2003













Second photo is later in the day. A Chevy 2 wheel drive truck with C-Tec style cages in front of the Animal Control Command Post trailer. Residents would call the office in San Bernardino, we'd get the call at the command post and send out staff to "rescue" their pets from houses that were being or had been evacuated.
















Set up at the Glen Helen Rodeo grounds near the end of the Old and Gran Prix fires in November 2003. A good photo of the department's Command Post. Back end was a full opening door for loading and unloading stuff.










Last photo is from the mid 1980's of the designated Dead animal pickup unit. A Dodge one ton, storage compartments on this side, a few regular cage compartments on the other. The center area was open with a lift gate at the back and a winch inside to pull in and lift large dead animals. I helped load several horses over the years it was used. I remember once it was going down the road with four feet from a horse sticking straight up out the top. That got a lot of looks!

More trucks and such

Another photo of the rear view of 5010. Taken at one of my favorite lunch break places at the time, Chino Airport.
The truck had the old Datsun cages welded to the frame and 'fenders' fabricated to take up the wheel width difference. The left rear cage was my 'storage' cage where I put all my equipment I didn't want in the cab. The depart never got extended cabs until just before I left. Too bad, they would have been so useful all those years! The top lights I installed myself. I didn't like the only lights being the ones on the bumper. They often failed for one reason or another so I put these on top all wired in so they were running, turn and stop. My idea worked so well that upper lights were installed on most trucks and all new cages.

Taken in 2003 when I was a supervisor, I was hooking up the departments "Command Post" 24 foot long toy hauler trailer to take it out for the County Employees Pick Nick.
A hot muggy San Bernardino day!









At the second running springs fire near where it started on Highway 330 above Highland California in Sept. 2003. The department had two horse/stock trailers at the time.










Last photo is of me at 5:30 in the morning at the Sheriff's Command Post in Running Springs during the same fire in Sept. '03. My assigned truck is still hooked up to the trailer. A 2000 Chevy one ton 2 wheel drive, it had really struggled to get the command post trailer up to this area. The truck just didn't have a powerful enough motor for pulling this trailer!

Some Animal Control trucks I drove

To kind of go along with yesterday's post, this one and a few more will be just photos and comments of the different trucks I'd driven over the years.
First photo is my 1980's Chevy. I drove it for several years. When I got it it already had almost 200,000 miles on it and had a new rebuilt engine. By this time, about 1986 or so, all the trucks had "Rec-Air" water cooled air conditioners for the cages. Water was pumped to a pan inside the cooler and the water was sucked up by the venturi effect of the spinning fan and splashed onto a foam liner that the air was forced through, cooling the air. A 5 gallon tank was mounted up under the rear cages and the setup had an 'on demand' 12 volt RV type of water pump. Switched inside the cab, when all worked it actually kept the cages very cool due to the small area to be cooled. It was really nice in the cages when it was in the 90's. Problem was the floats in the cooler unit itself could never be set to a good level that metered out just enough water to keep it cool for a long period of time. Driving around sloshed water all over the place and since the cooler and pump were then wired to run at the same time, the 5 gallons of water in the tank would only last about 20 minutes tops if you were driving around.
So knowing that, I'd watch the switch because it was pulse as the water pump was working and glow steady when it was out of water. The foam that the water splashed onto could stay damp and cool for another 30 minutes or so unless it was a really hot day before it was just blowing hot air on the animals.
All that water all the time caused the areas in the cages to stay wet and to rust away. Within a couple of years of use the "County Yards" were fabricating floor plates, inner door hinges, and other parts that were rusted through.


Second photo was taken in 1982, it shows one of the 'back breaking' Datsun trucks and two 1/2 ton Chevy's. I drove the dark brown one 5012 that summer. No cage coolers yet and most of the trucks were all kinds of colors and shades of brown. By the early 1990's they were all white. Much better for a service truck! Back in those days all vehicles were retired by mileage, usually between 60,000 to 80,000 miles. Later in another attempt to 'save money' replacement was assessed by still viable serviceability and several trucks would get over 300,000 and several engine and transmission rebuilds before getting replaced.









The last photo for this post was of the new cages the department tried on this truck, a 4 wheel drive Chevy for the mountains. These all fiberglass cage sets were supposed to be lighter and better. No roof a/c unit on this installation, they had a pass through box that drew air from the truck cab from under the seat. Great in theory, poor in practice! Since it was from under the seat it just wasn't cool air! Road and exhaust pipe heat in the summer warmed the area which warmed the air under the seat. And the trickle of air that actually got into the cages was not much in the way of relief. The fiberglass just wasn't up to the task either since may areas, both the mountains and the deserts, had poor and very rough dirt roads. The cage door hinges began to crack and give way from the constant bouncing. They lasted a few years, they had to get their money out of them! But ultimately metal cages were returned to.

Driving my life away and memorable trucks over the years

This was one area that working for the largest county in the nation had advantages. Especially if like me, you liked to drive, a LOT!!!
Even in the "urban areas" of the county it was most often from 80 to 150 miles a day. And when I was working the "outlying areas" it could easily and often be around 300 or more miles a day.
When I became a field officer in 1983 the trucks then were mostly late '70's to 1982 Chevy 1/2 ton to 3/4 ton cab and chassis with metal cage boxes welded on to the bodies.
There were also three late '70's Datsun standard cab trucks. NOBODY liked to drive the Datsun's, they had been an attempt by the county to have some 'economical' trucks that might get better then the 6 to 8 MPG the larger trucks got. Problem was that the standard cab Datsun's didn't have enough room behind the bench seat for the gigantic radio units that were the norm in the early 1980's. So with the radio box behind it the seat, it became just slightly over vertical in feeling and a metal frame bar from the seat back pounded across your back and shoulder blades. VERY uncomfortable to say the least! Add to that that the weight of the all metal cages was so much that the standard Datsun rear shocks couldn't hold up the cages. So the county maintenance crews put what felt like no suspension at the back end, think "hard tail" on a chopper that has no shocks at all! It was like having a pogo stick in the back if you were driving on the freeways with their expansion joints or were driving on bad roads. Just plain hurt after a full day of driving.

Almost all the trucks had cab air conditioning, but these stripped down trucks seldom had even am radios except for the Datsun's.

My first assigned truck was a then new, Chevy S-10 standard cab truck. They'd grafted a set of Datsun cages to the back and the truck was a V-6 with a 4 speed manual transmission. I was one of the very few people in the department that could drive a stick shift so I was offered and took the truck. Compared to the full size trucks it was a little hot rod that handled like a sports car with all the weight of the cages on the back. Still had a too stiff rear suspension but it at least did actually absorb some bounce instead of just bounce higher like the Datsun's did. Back in 'the day' before it became so populated with people moving to the area, it was nothing to be literally flying down the highway at 70 or 80 MPH. My very first day as an ACO with my very first truck just for me and I'm at the car wash we all used on Waterman and as the blower is going up over the truck the operator had forgotten to set it to a tall truck and the blower rolled up the windshield over the top of the cab and it tears off the revolving amber warning light all the trucks had as it passes over. I got my first experience at filling out accident forms to that day!

I'd say the very worst truck of them all was a mid '80's Dodge 6 cylinder with standard transmission. By now I was assigned to the valley all the time and the department was expanding in areas and staff. We had two shifts, Sunday to Wednesday and Wednesday to Saturday, four- ten hour shifts. The S-10 had been regulated to a spare for mileage and I was assigned one of the two new Dodge 1/2 tons to share with another ACO. Since at this time there weren't enough trucks for everyone to have their own units, everybody had to share trucks for a while. It was full sized 1/2 ton and they'd again put a set of Datsun cages on this one also. It was another attempt at 'economy', that also didn't work! Even with the supposedly lighter weight of the smaller cages, the Dodge was a totally gutless, powerless, piece of you know what! It was sooooo slow it could be a hazard getting on the freeway. And going up to the mountains as I had to do on several occasions was down to second gear with the motor screaming to go 25 miles per hour! I drove it on my shift and Diane drove it on her shift. We rode together on Wednesdays if we were both at work until the Program Manager found out everybody was having too much fun riding together on Wednesdays.

As the years passed the county finally realized that they'd get more money back on their investments at auction and resale if they'd spring for a few more options when they ordered them from fleet sales. So with the 1989 models we started to get cloth seats (so much nicer then the hot vinyl seat covers), AM and FM radios, and even a few like the 1991 Ford I got, had cruise control. That 1991 Ford 3/4 ton was I'd say my favorite truck out of 25 years. Dual gas tanks and 13 MPG it had a great range over the single tanked 6 to 8 MPG 1980's Chevy's.

In the early days you'd get a truck while yours was in for service with no 'outside' radio at all so I'd bring a small AM/FM radio and hang it on the gun rack in those trucks. Now with the Ford, AM/FM stereo was sooooo nice. But I'd discovered audio books by then so I wanted to take those with me and listen on those long drives.
After several trial and error experiments with different portable battery powered radio/cassette players, I created what I called a "Radio Box". I took a relatively inexpensive plastic tool box and on the back side of it I installed an mid priced auto AM/FM cassette deck, decent sounding car speakers, and on the front side that became the backside when finished, I quickly learned I needed to cool it so I put a switched 12 volt cooling fan to draw cool air through and keep the radio from getting too hot. It was all wired in to a 12 volt power cord and cigarette lighter plug. Although I seldom used it for the radio part, I always installed a powered radio antenna on it too. Relatively compact it would be held in place on the passenger side of the seat by the seat belt going through the tool boxes handle.
That was the way it was for several years. I made about a dozen Radio Boxes over the time, some for friends too. I also tried to find the 'perfect' one in what I wanted to sound good. The biggest or "ultimate" radio box was fairly large box with a CB radio at the bottom, a 6 band equalizer in the middle, and a AM/FM, Cassette player on top. Two large 6 by 9 three way speakers in a kind of cat's eye arrangement on the box. I wound up putting a piece of of wood on the bottom to help stabilize the whole thing because it was a bit heavy and top heavy also. But it sounded so good!
If I had to trade trucks for a few days, as long as the next truck had a lighter plug adapter, I was fine.

Over the years the trucks got nicer, the gas mileage got better. You practically lived in the things with on-call and over time it was often more like 60 hours a week in the summertime, they were your office, your transportation to calls and then to the animal shelters, thousand of miles a month. Reliability and comfort were really important as far as I was concerned! And others felt that way too. I just wished they'd had gotten extended cab trucks. Many area agencies got them when they started to become popular. The people that had them loved the extra space in the cab. The county did start to get a few of that style but only right before we left the county so I never got to do more than drive one a couple of times.

Started out almost everything was Chevy, then for years it was Dodge, then Fords for about two years, then back to Chevy and Dodge both with just before we left the county some Fords again. For years it was always "low Bid" won as far as the brand, later since the department started to be billed directly for the trucks it became whatever was available in the county that mixed the brands up a bit.
My last ACO field truck was a 2000 Ford 3/4 ton truck. My Last truck at all was a 2000 Chevy 1 ton pick up when I was a supervisor. And that fancy AM/FM, Cassette, CD player from the last radio box was put into the dash of this truck. But since 2003 Stacy and I had been listening to XM Satellite Radio at home and work. So I had my XM radio plugged into the truck radio with the cassette adapter. Best sounding set up by far! The sound, the choices, music, news, old radio shows, audio books and the biggest thing was (is) the fact that wherever you where it sounded just as good, never went back to regular radio!

The supervisors wanted people to be able to tow trailers also. That was why in the late 1990's all the trucks were at least 3/4 ton sized. To be able to tow the horse and stock trailers the department had. In the early 2000's the department sprung for a tow able lift bed trailer for large dead livestock or loads that, especially with dead livestock, be dumped at the rendering plant on arrival. It also had a 6,000 which installed on the front to help pull up any large deads. Through most of the years there had a been a designated truck for dead pick ups. With a built in which and a lift gate, I remember seeing it going down the road with horse hooves sticking out the top.
The towable tilt bed dead trailer was a much better idea, after the bugs were worked out! The early winches didn't have the power to pull up a dead anything larger than a sheep, I know I was the one trying to load a dead horse! A heavier winch was installed then it was great for large things like a horse, except the only one car sized battery didn't have the juice to work more than a few minutes before going dead. Nobody had thought about hooking it up to the towing truck to keep it charged up. Ultimately they did though, and then it was kind of overkill. The maintenance yards were concerned of a possible fire if the wiring overheated while the winch was being used. So a giant plug with large diameter wiring was installed on all supervisor trucks only, to keep it charged and ready when used. Then it all worked great.

In early 2003 the department got a small 24 foot tow hauler trailer as it's emergency "Command Post". The toy hauler was picked for its flexibility of hauling 'things' as well as providing a place for staff to eat and sleep if needed. A small shower/toilet combo bathroom, fold down benches/beds, stove, fridge, air conditioning and with a generator for out in the boondocks situations. Since I had RV's I towed it on several occasions it was used. Even though the truck I was assigned was a one ton Chevy, it didn't have the engine to adequately tow this somewhat lightweight trailer. In the fires of September 2003 I could barely make it up the mountain towing it. Just too heavy and the engine too small!

Oh well. I guess enough for now! Tad

Animal Lovers and Problems

"Animal Lovers"

Many of us 'in the business' used to literally cringe at the words "I'm an animal lover". Seems like so often the people that would utter those words, while they may have truly thought they were, but so often they were the problems themselves!
While many 'citizens' could be lucid and intelligent, many that uttered that phrase were, to put it bluntly, a little nuts when it came to animals. Too many of this, not enough of that, they often had the money to generally take care of their pets, but if it came down to taking an injured pet to the vet or have to spend more than they'd think was right, then it was try to skimp and get by with something much less than necessary.
I went to many, many homes with animals running around all over the place and yet they'd often be more than willing to take in more and more of whatever so in their mind they were showing how much they loved animals!

Collectors
Kind of along the same line as the people above, collectors are the people that just can not stop getting more and more and more of their animals. Dogs, cats, mice, horses, goats, couldn't tell what a collector might have, although I usually handled calls about dogs, cats and horses.
When to stop, and how could they stop? I never knew. Now there have been all kinds of studies done about people like this and it has now been classified as an Obsessive Compulsive Disorder condition, but through most of my years in the department people like this just had 'a problem'.
I recently got to see a program on Animal Planet that I'd recorded a month or so ago, a compilation show from Animal Cops all about various collector homes that had been raided. If you want to see what it could really be like, try to see this show. Most can not imagine how bad it really can be. And after you see it you wonder how could they live like this???
I think it was the first home I was at that was a collectors home, it was a very small, just a few hundred square feet for the whole residence. What started our involvement was the owner had gone to the local hospital for treatment of a severely infected cat bite on her arm. On the follow up check by the area animal control officer, we always had to follow up with doctor and hospital reported animal bites, it was discovered that the owner lived in this small house with about 60 to 90 cats/kittens.
It was quite a shock, that first home. You can not believe the ammonia smell, I can't even think of a way to describe it to you. Before I'd left the department had begun to get full coverage masks with breathing filters for these places, but back then everybody just inhaled it all in.
I was one of 4 ACO's sent to get the cats gone from the place. You'd go in the front door and and have to walk up a hill of piled up cat litter. Then it was walking elevated on the cat litter pile all through the house. What she'd do is just make layers on top of layers of the cat litter as the cats would poop in it. She was very elderly lady that lived alone and I guess just didn't have the energy anymore to keep after all the cats she had in her tiny house. News papers, cat litter, old cat food bags and cans, just narrow pathways to various points in her place. Her kitchen was just as bad as everywhere else, old moldy dishes, pots and pans in her sink and on her counter along with empty cans etc. We opened her fridge to find it a living lesson in mold formation. I expected stuff to be crawling out of the thing when we opened it. Nothing was fresh and I have no idea what she ate unless it was the same as her 'pets'.
Catching cats was never really easy with the 'Catch Pole' we had. It could be done but was time consuming and cats would literally bounce off the walls and tear up and down curtains and any cloth furniture in a house. Many places this bad also often had cats living inside furniture since they make holes into the backs of them and raise babies there. It took hours but most all were caught and taken to the shelter. To be honest in situations like this especially for cats, in my opinion, it was more 'humane' to get a owner release and just PTS or euthanize them as soon as we got to the shelter. It may seem the height of cruelty, but most often in places with this many cats almost all but a very few would be totally feral and untouchable by anyone, even the owner. And due to the close unsanitary conditions many cats (or dogs) would usually be sick with various diseases or from various injuries like fights among themselves.

I went to a call at a home less than a mile from our department offices in San Bernardino where the owner had bred and kept over 40 Chihuahuas all loose in the house with her. This call was the response from a neighbor complaint that they had finally felt that maybe there were a few too many dogs there. The day that a fellow officer got there to investigate the complaint, he found that the owner had kind of lost her marbles that day. He told me that he found the owner, a 70's aged woman, lying naked on the floor trying to strangle one of her dogs. She was taken to "Ward B" for psychological evaluation, but all the dogs had to be taken to the shelter since there was no one there at the house to care for them. Chihuahuas can live into their high teens or even early twenties so there were several of these dogs at least that old! Really old Chihuahuas can quite often have no teeth and problems keeping their tongues in their mouths. Skinny, gray haired and can't keep their tongues in, talking about the dogs here. At the advanced ages they do become fragile and have to be carefully handled.
But small dogs like Chihuahuas bring a flood of people wanting to adopt and rescue them so all that could found new homes.

I went to a couple of different homes, one with dogs and one with cats, that were gross and disgusting like the ones I've mentioned, but were different in the fact that the owners were people in the medical field! Nurses to be exact, the dog owner a guy the cats a lady. Actually the guy was the worst, I couldn't imagine this guy working at a major regional hospital taking care of people yet going home and living in such a filthy place. He was so bad that he didn't bother to 'go to the bathroom', he'd just go to the bathroom where he was! There were gallon jugs all around his recliner, all around his living room and kitchen, and all full of his urine. What he was going to do with it I never found out, and a few days after all the dogs were taken away there was a 'mysterious' fire that burned the place down. Rumor I'd heard months afterward was the people that owned the house had found out how bad it was inside and thought it was better to start from scratch instead of the cost of clean up to a habitable standard.

The cat lady? well she just couldn't bare to see any cats gotten rid of. She had a friend that worked at a local veterinarian's office that when a cat was brought to the office that she thought was still healthy but just no longer wanted, it would just disappear from the vet's office after it was to have been euthanized and wind up at this owners house. She was up to 45 when I met her. She had no carpet in most of her house from the cats wrecking it by using it as a bathroom. She kept sheets and blankets on all the windows where someone might see in to see what was going on in her house. The cats had the run of the place even sleeping all over the bed with her and her husband. Actually this was one of the very few times that it was a couple in this situation, it was most often a single person, and an elderly single person at that. Anyway boxes of kitty litter all over the house, but you can not kill the smell when there are that many cats there too, so it really stank which was how we'd gotten the call to check it out. A neighbor down the way as these were not close tract houses had gotten tired of the smell blowing down their way, done some checking and had seen several cats. They never knew it was 45 though! In this case none were ever taken except at her request. The owner got a bunch of people she knew to take most of them for her and some had to actually be PTS'd due to illness, but that was all at her doing. I went back several times over several months to make sure she wouldn't take them all away to comply then bring them all back after she thought the 'coast was clear'. She'd apparently used this as an opportunity to get a new start like she said she'd do. Good for her! Although now almost 5 years later, if I was down there she'd probably have 100 by now!

Well, with interruptions this has taken a few hours so I guess that's it for this time.
Tad

Back Yard Horse Calls

Much of the areas I really liked to work over the years were rural areas.
Because they were rural or still semi-rural areas then I responded to many, many calls about large animals and livestock.
The most common call?
It was the "back yard" horse.
You had to have at least a half an acre in many areas to have a horse. Actually, two horses could be had on half an acre. But it was most often the large enough lot, but the horse was kept in a 12 foot by 12 foot pipe corral.
OK, so it was a legal size, I always felt and said it should be a minimum of a 24 by 24 size but I couldn't make them get a bigger one if they had a legal sized corral with only one horse in it. The definition of any adequate size confinement was the ability for the animal to walk about and turn around freely in it's 'space'.

Problem was the same kind of not really ready for it as the "impulse puppy" gotten from out front of the super market, the 'we gotta get the kids a horse' was often just as bad if not sometimes worse! Spend a few hundred dollars, get a corral, just some food and water, that's all it takes right? SO wrong!
In my opinion, horses are a pretty expensive hobby! Good hay isn't cheap, an annual vet check really is needed, usually a farrier is needed to take care of the feet about every two months and that's whether you ride or not. Proper ownership of an animal like a horse in an urban area like Southern California is an expensive proposition!

And most often while the intention is good, after a while the interest would wane by the kids as they'd get older and want to do other things, but a horse can live to be mid 20's to even early 30's. But the horse was usually 'out back' and the feedings would get missed the water would start to stay dirty, and the horse would just stand there 24-7 & 365 and the poop would get higher and higher since the corral wasn't cleaned out anymore. No vet checks and it would get worms, the rear teeth get too long, the hooves continue to grow and start to look like a slipper. Between the teeth and the worms the horse doesn't want to eat and looses weight, it can't walk because its feet hurt, what a life huh?

So a friend would be visiting or a neighbor would happen to finally notice that something wasn't quite right with the horse next door and they'd call in the always 'anonymous' call of abuse or neglect.
Many of you readers may have seen shows like "Animal Cops" or similar shows on various networks, or even on-line now a days, but what owners thought was OK, or just a 'little' underweight was often pretty bad!

I am not meaning to single out any race of people, but the areas in Southern California I worked were predominately Hispanic, and many of the calls I went to where problems were existing were because many of the people I dealt with felt that "all Mexicans are born horse people" and that they inherently knew all there was to know about horses. That horse wasn't several hundred pounds underweight, it's supposed to be 'lean' because its a racehorse. Those hooves aren't too long, "I trim them myself and I know what I'm doing"!
Well, they often really didn't! Many thought they did though!
In the Muscoy area I went to several calls where the riders had been riding drunk and had an accident, either falling off or a couple of times riding drunk late at night and being hit by a car since the driver didn't see, or expect to see, a dark horse running across the road out of nowhere in the dark because the rider was drunk!

Worst abused horse call in 25 years was a literal skin and bones horse that was so weak it was suspended by ropes inside a small building. The hooves were almost curled all the way around like a slipper. We had a vet make an emergency call out to the house and as it was lowered it collapsed, and after examination the vet determined it was too far gone and could not be saved. The owning family was having money problems, thought the horse could live on scraps instead of a good diet and they just didn't have a clue about caring for it, but it had been given to them and they liked having it there because they just felt they should have a horse! What was really sad about the situation was like the joke of jacking up the flat tire on a car to change it and it doesn't look flat anymore, they'd thought the horse was OK when they'd they'd 'strung it up' because it wasn't falling down anymore.

Most in or near the city calls were about flies, horse poop build up, skinny looking, no water, dirty water, too many for the size lot, too close to 'my' house, on and on and on.
While most of us had no experience as a vet, we had the authority to make the owner pay big bucks to get the animal seen by a real vet! We'd leave a "Notice of Violation" which wasn't a citation or ticket, but it gave the owner from a few hours to as much as a month to 'fix' the problem. With just about any horse issue it meant a vet check. The people that regularly used a vet were often upset because they knew how much it was going to cost them! The ones that didn't use a vet were upset when they found out how much it was going to cost them to get the check. Long hooves meant a check by a farrier, then it was from $35 to $120 a horse depending on the farrier or area. The real high end areas like Rancho Cucamonga had some pretty costly N.O.V's issued by me. A vet check, a farrier check, looking like two to three hundred dollars per horse! And I know I wrote quite a few for two and three horses at various properties over the years i worked out in that West end of San Bernardino county.

It was sad when on a check of the area zoning that stated exactly how many and what kind of animals were allowed at a given property, and the owner had too many of this or that kind of animal. I remember one place was allowed 9 horses, the max at the time anywhere in the county, and they had 20 horses in addition to dogs, cats, goats. Had to give them 30 days to start and reduce down to the "legal limit". That would sometimes stretch out to two or even three months, only as long as the owner was 'trying'. If they weren't working on it, then they just got a ticket and let the Judge make the determination. What owners didn't know is that most Judges really couldn't go against what the area zoning was because if they did, then other citizens could just say, "well what about him?"

Most people just couldn't understand the zoning allowances. They'd say "I've lived out here, in no mans land for _____ years, I got twenty acres (or forty or even once a hundred acres) and you're telling me I can only have 9 horses, and 5 dogs?" "Yes sir, that's all you're legally able to keep". "You're full of S***!"

They didn't get that I personally didn't care what they had, but a neighbor usually, had called in complaining about too many animals, and that complaint was all it took to now make him (or her) comply!

Of course there were many more horses that were properly cared for, taken care of, ridden by caring owners and yes even some real 'horse people' are out there. During the fires in 2003 some owners spent hundreds of dollars to have their animals taken out of harms way. They couldn't get up to their homes, but they cared about their pets!
But I didn't usually meet them!
Till next time, Tad

Guns, Guns, Guns......T-guns to Shotguns

This blog is one I brought over from my family blog about some of my Animal Control experiences with guns.

Tranquilizer Guns:

I had experience with both kinds of these guns, with shotguns it was as a shooter and once almost a shootie!

In the department we were all required to pass P.C. 832, Arrest and Firearms, which included some basic gun range and shooting abilities, so some had more than others as far as gun knowledge went.

A Tranquilizer or "T-Gun" was either a sci-fi looking CO2 cartridge fired pistol, or a 22 caliber blank fired rifle.
Either type uses a hollow aluminum tube of various lengths, as a dart/syringe for getting the tranquilizer drug to the animal. We (the department) usually used the barbed dart tip to try to save on lost darts. EVERYBODY that tried to 'tranq' an animal often missed and darts were often lost. With a barbed tip it was hoped that even with an injury to the animal by the dart, the dart would still be there! Assembled from six parts, when the dart was fired it set off a blank charge inside that would push a rubber plunger in the tube that would force the drug through the hollow tip injector and hopefully into the animal.
One thing that was forever a problem was the public perception of how the tranquilizer actually worked. Seemed like almost everybody had seen an animal show on TV that shows how almost immediately after being darted, the next scene was was usually the animal, from a bear to a elephant, laying down breathing slowly just waiting for the pros' to come and examine or cage the animal.

It never, EVER happened like that in the 'real' world!!

In EVERY attempt I did either myself or while helping other staff in almost 25 years, what usually happened was this; you'd get to a scene and size up what you're up against and trying to dart. For our department it was most often a dog that couldn't be caught any other by any other means. Using a T-Gun was a method of last resort because of its failure rate. We'd have to get help out before you'd even try to tranq a dog or any other animal. You needed chasers to try to follow and keep track of the dog as most took off after they were hit, assuming you could hit them! Being hit with a dart had to hurt!!
If hit there was no scene cut like on TV, it could take 20 minutes or more, for the drug to take effect. And that was if people didn't try to keep up or catch the dog too soon. Adrenaline in the dog could slow the effect of the drug longer or to the point that the dog would never really relax. If just shadowed, not chased, the dog would often be tired then find a place to lay down. You'd still need to be careful to sneak up on the dog since most never were 'out' as much as the TV shows either, and many would get up and start running again.

A lot of 'ifs' here, but if the dog wasn't lost after darting and if the dog/animal was relaxed and resting in an accessible area, and if you could still sneak up and be able to get your "Control Stick" (the aluminum pole with the cable noose through it) and if you're able to get the noose around its neck before it tried to take off running again, you might have actually caught it!

Many dogs were lost after darting, they'd just run off and not be found again. Many would show up again in the area days or even weeks later, sometimes with the dart still hanging off them. Many, many darts were lost because the handgun type of dart guns were not accurate as the distances grew. With those it was the closer the better!

If successfully captured, it was load up the dog and take it to a veterinarian before taking it to the shelter. There was always a nasty wound from the dart itself especially after removal of the barbed tip. Also the drug mixture was never an exact science and it was very easy to overdose and occasionally kill the animal. So to the vet, and after an OK from the vet, then to the shelter to sleep it off and then often spend the last few days of their life in a cage. I darted many, many dogs and even a goat once. Small animals like cats were never darted as even the low power charge had enough energy to kill cats and even small dogs.

In the early years all the field ACO's carried the CO2 type of T-Guns. Most were kept in various stages of rust from not being cared for and most ACO's just left the guns to rattle around under the seat of their truck. Over the years the laws changed and all T-Guns were turned in and Supervisors became the ones to directly deal with these kinds of situations.
To me the CO2 handgun type of T-Gun was pretty much useless. I took care of mine though, kept in a case all clean and dry. But those guns very often had seal problems with the CO2 gas escaping so by the time you'd go to all the effort to get the solution ready, get everything loaded, it would be just like a comedy and when I fired it the dart would go about 20 feet or less in an arc and into the ground. Real professional!
The drug solution could not be mixed in advance, the darts couldn't be left loaded and ready to go, in fact the drug as it evaporated, became like a superglue. Many darts were wrecked that were left with the drug mix in them, stuck NEVER to be opened again!

The T-Rifles were much better to use, much more accurate, and much longer ranged. When I became a supervisor I was able to get one of those type of tranquilizer guns. I was more successful with this type then anything else.

Shotguns:

As for shotguns, only supervisors and most 'outlying' area ACO's carried them. I carried my own until I was issued one. I kept it all cleaned and oiled, ready to go, hoping I'd never need to! I only used my shotgun one time at a call in Helendale California.
Helendale is a small community on the old route 66 route highway called "National Trails Highway" as it runs through San Bernardino County, and about halfway between Victorville and Barstow.
Way out in the hills east of the highway was an old lady that had lived at her small shack house since the late 1940's. No electricity, no piped in water just a water truck and gravity tank she refilled, then had refilled as she got to old to do it herself. Like so many areas the world had grown up around her and after decades of isolation, acreage lots with large expensive homes were going in nearby all around her place. She had amassed through many years and untold generations of never spaying or neutering her dogs, over 100 shepherd mix feral aggressive wild dogs living around her wide open property.
When I first met her on an initial call out to her place over dog complaints, she told me she went through a 50 pound bag of dog food a week. She didn't realize that even that amount wasn't enough for all those dogs, so many also hunted in large packs killing any small animals they found. With the new area homes, her dogs had come across new animals to eat and had killed and eaten several smaller dogs and cats from several area homes.
So it became a "problem" we had to deal with. When I was as I'd mentioned above at her house for my first visit, I found it was a scene I'd come across many times already. Because of her age she wasn't a true collector as many had been. She just wasn't physically capable of dealing with all she hand gotten by not taking care of a few dogs she may have really wanted to keep at one time. She just kept throwing out the food and let the dogs live and die on their own.
Her very small two room dilapidated cabin/shack, was nothing but stacks of books and newspapers with narrow paths going from point to point in the house. A path to her bed, her couch, her bathroom. Outside were decades of old rusting cars, years of rusting empty cans of dog food, piles of empty bags of dog food. All kinds of tables with sun bleached old antiques, toys, more news papers, books and on and on.

We'd made a few attempts to trap but with no effect. She refused to stop feeding the dogs and all the cage type traps we used were food based so if they aren't hungry they won't go in! After numerous threats and bargains, it was decided to have the entire high desert staff meet at the place to "take out" as many as we could to start to solve the problem.
On the first day to try it, we all met out at the place early as most of the dogs were still around the house then. Four of us waited hidden by piles of junk and about a dozen cans of dog food was dumped as bait to get them close by. When they got close we all opened fire, I don't remember exactly how many were shot that morning, we did make a dent in the population though. But it took several more months and a few more hunts (I wasn't involved in those) before it was 'problem solved'.
I never had to do anything like I just described again in any of my years there. Maybe that's why I'm still no mighty hunter living in the land of hunters up here. I didn't get anything from the experience worth repeating!


Over the years I was at several calls, especially after hours or 'on-call', responding to calls with local Police or the Sheriff's Department. These were usually aggressive or 'vicious' dog calls. At one call in the county area of Victorville, I almost got shot by an over zealous Deputy that was in a large back yard with me and another Deputy, the dog was running all over the place while I was chasing it. It was dark with a large dark brown dog running back and forth, one time the dog ran close to the one deputy, with me right there too, and it startled him to where he fired a couple of shots into the ground with his automatic gun! I wasn't afraid of the dog, but after that I sure was afraid of him!

Another call in late 1980's Ontario California and I went out to assist another officer who was at a house to get the aggressive Pit Bull dog that had been causing problems for neighbors. We got there to find the dog chained up to the front porch and the owner either not home or refusing to come to the door with all the police cars, and our two trucks out there. The Police ordered us to get the dog chained up or not and take it away.
So me and Gib go to get the pit, the City PD are standing back both with shotguns ready to fire if there are any problems, ...............WAIT, whats wrong with the picture! Both Gib and I are in the middle BETWEEN a very mean pit bull and two Ontario PD guys and their shotguns pointed at us!
I told them to go put their guns away if they wanted me to get the dog! They did and we got the dog with little difficulty. After we got the dog the PD decided they wanted to make sure no one was home so they went in and found out nobody was there.

One call in a scuzzy area of San Bernardino, (there where many back then!) and as I'm talking to the RP (Reporting Party) about his neighbors dog, they get into a shouting match and the older neighbor goes in and comes back out with a shotgun and is threatening to shot the guy I'm talking to. After several tense minutes talking to this guy, explaining things like jail and prison to him, I get him to put the gun away and we'd all three talk about it. By the time I left, while not "buds" by any means, at least they were civil to each other and agreed to work out the problems.

Ah................, memories!!!!!
Till next time!