On-Call and Happy 4th of July............NOT!

Not if you're employed in the field or at a shelter in any Animal Control agency anyway.

New Year's Eve to Day, December 31st to January 1st, and July 4th, were always days to dread. Of course it wasn't usually the 4th of July, it was more often the 5th of July or the second of January after the night of "merriment" that was supposed to be celebrating our Countries birthday or the new year that caused all the problems.
And I got it, the fireworks to remember the tribulations of the battle for Independence, or just to show how happy you are about the new year by blowing something up. I loved as a kid and still do enjoy watching the firework displays there are, I just couldn't understand why in areas that were increasingly fire hazard areas and with the every year injury and death to people, mainly kids, how they're were always so many fireworks available.

Caused by many of those mostly illegal fireworks that were the rocket types that just about anybody that wanted to get had no trouble acquiring, those were the real problems fire wise. Yes there were some cities that sold the "safe and sane" types, and those were just as bad, but nobody ever stopped anybody from driving to the town that sold them and taking them back to the town they lived in that outlawed them! Your purchase was helping a Boy Scout troop or some other community group, so no worry right? Oh well.

How On-Call worked
I worked many July 4th to 5th 'On-Call' nights over the years. For our department, On-Call, was providing the 24 hours, 7 day a week coverage that as a law enforcement provider for many contract cities and the unincorporated communities of the county that we the county, contractually provided.
It could be a lucrative easy night with no calls or one early evening call, or you could wind up working your day shift, most of or all night on-call, and then your next days shift before you'd get a chance to go home and get some sleep.
When on-call we had a pager, this was the 1980s after all, and we were paid to be available during the night and to be able to respond to the page, call to get the information about a call, within 20 minutes and be on the road and on the way to that call within 1 hour.
In the early days, on-call was called "standby" and was minimum wage hourly rate of pay to basically sit around and wait for the phone to ring or the pager to go off. As the minimum wage kept going up, standby got too pricey for the county so in a contract it was changed to "On-Call" at a greatly reduced hourly rate, but you still were basically paid to do pretty much whatever you wanted until you were paged. If you got paged or called out the meter really started running. You lost that small hourly payment but now you would get double time for the callback, and time and a half for however long you were out handling the call, so good money was to be had doing on-call.

While many of the area agencies used direct from the local police department dispatch or an answering service to that agencies Animal Control Officer, as long as I was with the county San Bernardino County used a system of first, screened by the answering service, second, the answering service called to a "Duty Supervisor" to screen it yet again, then the Duty Officer would have the answering service send out whoever was on-call for whatever area the call was for.
You'd think this kind of complicated way of dealing with after hours calls would have been somewhat efficient at keeping employees from going on calls that were a waste of money for the county and truthfully a waste of time for the A.C.O., but no, it was so often abused by various Duty Officers over the years.
As the area populations continued to grow, so did the "emergency" calls at night. In my time as a supervisor there were many calls that came in that I never sent anyone out on, they could wait for the morning! But several of the supervisors on their rotational weeks of Duty Officer, got tired of the constant calls from the answering service and would tell the service that they basically had the protocol for calls and use it and send area people as needed, don't bother me! Do I know that's how it was said or if it was said like this, no. But, do I know that it happened like this, YES!

Many times myself and others, were given many, many, many really dumb calls that if someone had truly just asked a few questions it could have been resolved over the phone or could have waited until the next days regular shift. But hey, it wasn't their money was it?
Why should I be complaining after talking about all the money I'd get for going on a 'dumb' call? In the early years I didn't as it was often so new and exciting to go out at all hours 'on-call'. When I lived and worked in "the valley", the San Bernardino basin below San Bernardino mountains and the Cajon Pass north and to the L.A. County line west, Riverside County south and east, on-call was often to assist the county Sheriff or a local city Police Department. Those were fun, exciting, for me personally, until about midnight to one a.m. Then I was done and didn't want to play anymore!
As the years went by I just plain got tired of much of it, so I gripe. Those 2, 3, 4 am calls truly became the pits!

But back to the 'fireworks', people would set off their safe and sane, or illegal and crazy, fireworks just about every night working up to the 4th of July. The night of the 4th though, really crazy! The whistling, popping, fireworks, the bright flashes and explosions of others, would terrify many animals. Dogs really did jump through windows and door screens, some really did jump through picture windows, just because they were so scared. Dogs, cats, small animals, large animals, all animals, could be scared to do things dangerous to themselves or other animals and people, all in the futile attempt to escape what was terrifying them.
Many people I knew of started to drug their pets and sedate them around those holidays, but many dogs and cats were injured or killed by their blind running.
 I picked up many dead and injured pets those nights and for the next few days, and after the holiday the stray animal calls were always up for about a week.

I remember one July 4th in the mid 1980's I was called out to Fontana, California, this was when the department had the contract with the city. Just getting to the call was a challenge, as I was having to weave through all the remnants of the celebrations all over the streets of the tracts getting to the call.
The call was to a house where rocket type fireworks had landed on the roof of a nearby garage and the garage caught fire and it burned down and the resulting fire damaged the house pretty badly too.
Some pets had died in the fire in the garage. The Fire Department and Police were still on the scene.
The residents were in shock standing around in the street with neighbors and I had to get their two cooked dogs, which they had placed in the garage to "keep them safe".

So often after these "holidays" I'd get stopped by a citizen reporting their lost pet, and invariably I'd be told "I only took his collar off to wash him, I just forgot to put it back on" after their dog ran off from the fireworks. Cats did run off too, but so few cats were ever found and returned.
For lost cats it wasn't just during these holidays, but just about anytime. A cat running away was often gone for good especially if it was new to the area it ran away from.

All I know is that nothing has changed back in the urban areas of the old home state of California. Illegal or not, citizens will still locate and have fireworks. They'll still be set off, and a lot of pets will still die those "holiday" weekends. And a lot of pets will still be spending several days or the rest of their lives at a shelter from what happens for many to just have some "fun" those holidays.

Till next time, Tad

First post of a new Blog

I've been posting for a couple of years for my spread out family and have included the occasional stories of my years as an Animal Control Officer (ACO) because most of my extended family had never known what my job was like. 

They've seemed to enjoy reading about my experiences so I thought I'd branch off in a new Blog just about this subject.

I worked for the San Bernardino County Animal Control Department from November, 2nd, 1981, to March 2006, so not quite 25 years, but close enough I don't mind 'rounding up'! 
After all, that is what you're supposed to do in county government, isn't it, round up?

I started out as a "Animal License Checker" and worked up the departmental ranks all the way to 'Lieutenant' or "Field Supervisor" for the last 5 years of my time there. My wife and I retired early at 49 and got out of California because of the growth, the cost of living there going no place but up, all those crowds also going nowhere but up and our desire to move to our present home in very small town Northern Idaho. We like it so much better up here!

As for Animal Control, being a Supervisor was 'OK' but the field was where it was at!
My wife also worked in the department for almost 20 years, as a field ACO and also many years exiled to the Shelter end of the job. Maybe she'll add some of her stories to this blog too.

I unfortunately didn't take many photos during much of my time there. I truly regret that now and hope the newer generations there with all the options now available to record your life are not making the same mistake. Where I have some that will work to talk about something or if I have photos of the event I'll include them. Wish I had taken more!

So for now this is the first post. I'll post occasionally so if interested keep checking back.