Actually, with the Internet and search engines something in animal control is almost always in the news nowadays!
Sometimes I'll do just that and search out some stories, often I come across them in the stories I read in my Google Reader.
Back in "the day", I remember myself and others in the department would be trying to find stories or more detailed information about something that had made the TV news, be it local or national.
While as I said I do sometimes look around, I'm always interested in stories that I read or hear about from the area I worked and lived in for so long or from the general area we now live in.
Yesterday I saw two stories that were interesting to me.
First was a story about some residents in the Seattle area that were upset that their "pet" cats had been caught in traps in a neighboring Police Department substation.
The station had set traps because the area cat population was out of control and the male cats were marking their territory by spraying things. Mentioned in the story was cats spraying the engine areas of the motorcycle units which caused the urine to cook and smell pretty bad for the riders. I actually doubted how it was reported the smell would make the riders "sick", I readily admit it would stink for a while! So the department, working with the area animal control department, started to set out traps and had been catching cats for a while before this incident apparently occurred. As reported, these residents had two cats, an old "15 year old" cat and a "playmate" younger cat. Apparent the older cat "disappeared" then a couple of weeks later the younger cat also disappeared. Now the owner never checked the local shelter after the first cat vanished, they did everything else though, signs, notices, etc. Somehow they were told about the P.D. trapping cats and discovered that both cats had been caught and impounded.
They reclaimed their younger cat and were upset that after a veterinarian evaluation, the older cat had been euthanized shortly after impound as unadoptable due to poor health and unowned since it had no microchip or any other owner identification. So many people NEVER bothered to check the shelters as one of the first things to do, not the last. I was very often hearing how their pet actually (supposedly) had a collar or a tag and that either or both had fallen off and they just hadn't gotten around to replacing it!
As with most animal related stories like this one, there were numerous comments on the story, most condemning the P.D.. "Shame on them" was often used. Only a few people wrote the obvious, why were the cats even out loose to be caught! Of course the writer went for the heart tag line used of "what will we tell our two year old happened to his favorite cat?".
Sorry folks, that's crap! Most two year old kids don't do much more than torment small animals! Now it usually isn't done with any intentional suffering, they're two years old! And at two years old, he won't remember the cats anyway! At that age you'd probably have to get to "Fluffy #15" before the kid would be at the age of remembering, and I'm still not saying caring yet either!, about the family pets of his youth.
Suggestions were made about covering the motorcycles and equipment that the cats are damaging. I cover our motorcycles and it has never stopped the cats from going up under the covers and leaving hair and muddy little footprints all over everything.
Nope, the cats should NOT be out loose! If you cared about them that is.
When I first started as a field officer, even back in the 1980's, it was probably a 3 to 1 on cat versus dog calls. I'd say that in many areas by the time I'd left that ratio was up to 6 to 1. The shelter euthanasia ratio was always higher for cats, I'd say around 9 cats to 1 dog there. Almost all adult cats were destroyed unless they were looking more like a pure breed of some type and were friendly, most adult cats were not. They were usually scared, handled in ways that would honestly terrify any animal, and would defend themselves the only way they could, teeth and claws.
And during puppy kitten "season"? Twice a year, the spring and the fall, those numbers would shoot up to 15 or 20 (or more) to one! Many of the more urban areas of the time like Rancho Cucamonga or Ontario would have people finding litters of kittens, usually a few hours to a few days old, in the bushes around the house, under boxes in a garage, in the back seat of a car that had been left in the driveway with the windows down! The discovery would usually scare and chase away the mother cat and so we'd get the call. There were NO facilities that would/could take on the task of caring for thousands of new to recently born kittens. Every year there would be a citizen or two that felt guilty about the call for pickup, especially when told what the ultimate outcome WOULD be of the litter, and would opt to try and hand raise one or more of the kittens. I can truthfully say in all my years there I only knew of about 3 people that successfully raised newborn kittens. Most people would not be able to deal with the constant attention required.
Often it was 5 to 8 newborn or very young kittens in a litter, and times that by 4 or more calls a day! All to be destroyed as soon as we arrived at the shelter.
Every year with both dogs and cats I'd get that moronic idea from people of "letting the children see the miracle of life", or getting a dog or cat for the baby to "grow up with"! With the first I always said "rent the National Geographic video!", with the second my opinion was "forget the real pet, just get a stuffed one!".
My words of wisdom with cats or really any pet? If you care, I mean really love your pet like you think you do, keep it confined at home! Don't let it run loose, get the necessary shots, and get a micro chip implanted in it!!!!!
A brief story on the microchip, a worthwhile investment. When they first began to be widely implanted I picked up a small dog in the Lytle Creek area that on discovery of of the chip with its information, it was discovered that the dog had been stolen from a yard about 50 miles away several months earlier! The true owners never thought they'd see their small dog again. Unfortunately the dog had escaped from whoever had taken it and the dog was found running loose in Lytle Creek so nothing could be done to prosecute the people that took it. I also know the microchips, several different companies make them, save many pets every year.
The second story was first told to me in an e-mail. She had attempted to send the story with the e-mail but it didn't work. I was able to go to the news site and read it.
Seems the San Bernardino Humane Society is in hot water for the 'secret' nightly euthanasia of unwanted pets brought to their facility by area and out of area "rescue" groups. Article said around 800 a month or 9,600 pets a year. The article went on to say that the San Bernardino City pound total was around 12,400 a year, and San Bernardino County- now down to 2 shelters- is a little over 10,000 a year. Add it up and realize that these numbers are only a few of the shelters in that general area. I can think of 6 others of various sizes! Welcome to the pet problems of the big cities. Too many people, too many expendable and uncared for pets.
The upsetness seems to be because the San Bernardino Humane Society is supposed to be a "no kill" facility with no shelter of their own.
Most of the time I was with County Animal Control there was a good sized animosity between our department and theirs. They often and always seemed to complain about the operation of our department and about how our department didn't follow through with cruelty complaints they referred. Our management complained that for a Humane Society, they weren't very humane and more out for the buck with their spay/neuter programs and such.
Shortly before we'd left that area the Humane Society had finished a brand new and much larger facility in San Bernardino. I drove by it many times but never got the tour.
The Humane Society had been for years in what I think was once a fast food restaurant or some such business off Highland Ave. in North San Bernardino. I had been at the old facility many times since for a long time any animals that were euthanized were picked up by our department and taken to our shelter for 'disposal' with the deads from our facility.
For a brief time they were sending their live pets for euthanasia to our shelter too, but that didn't last long when the 'word' got out. I think being a "Humane Society" and with the image of the national organization to live up to is next to impossible in an area like San Bernardino. In previous times of tight money many people got rid of pets first. Often when they'd call and find out it cost as much as it did to have YOUR pet picked up, they'd basically open the gate and kick the dog out. Or the cliche of take the pet 'for a ride' and drive away when it was let out. And with the current state of California's economy I'm certain the pet dumping is at an all time high.
It will be interesting to see what comes of this news story. I know that as often happens in things like this, "heads will roll" whether justified or not. The story says the H.S. has a 3.5 million dollar operating budget and the story said that the animals were all destroyed at no cost to those bringing them in.
And the guy that was in charge of the S.B. Humane Society while I was in Animal Control? He's now the person in charge of County Animal Control. He'd started shortly after we left. I knew him a little bit, I'd done a local PBS call in show once with him and I'd seen him during the fires of 2003.
I'll be curious to see if he gets reported in print and chimes in on this since I'd been told last year he still had connections with the Humane Society he'd been in charge of for so long.
More later! Tad
