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!