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