Just a short post for the moment, I've been really busy since August so haven't been able to update.  But I thought I would note a milestone of sorts, if I still worked for the S.B. County that is. Today would have been 30 years in were I still there. I can think of only two or three from my "era" that are still there.

3o years ago today was a Monday, 11/02/1981, and I was a nervous new employee at San Bernardino County Animal Control.
I took the job when offered because of my liking working with animals and pets, although you really don't work that much with animals, it was really a people job, and because of the security of a county job.  And I thought back then that I'd work it for a while until 'something better' came along. Nothing did for 25 years! Then getting "outta Dodge" and leaving California came along!!!
I wouldn't go back.

But I do like remembering and writing these memories about all those years.

The Fires of October 2003

This is a relatively short, 12 minute video compiled from videos I had taken during the 2003 "Grand Prix" and "Old" Fires of October in San Bernardino County.

What follows is a repost of a blog I wrote in October 2008 about this topic of the Fires of 2003. I couldn't really go into much more of the story than this post! Then it was 5 years, now it is almost the 8th anniversary of theses events;


I was on the Internet watching with interest about the annual firestorms that have become as normal down in our old area of Southern California, as the leaves turning gold up here.

Rewind to November 1981 and I was a new employee of San Bernardino County Animal Control, and just a little over a year before there had been the devastating Little Mountain fire that had taken out most of the homes in the North end of San Bernardino. So most of the people working there then had their stories of all seen and done during those fires. For many it had been the biggest event to be involved with in their entire lives. Back then and for many years, fires happened in the late summer and while most were quick brush fires, seldom did the fires just keep coming with the mass devastation to San Bernardino County that there has been since the summer of 2003.

Of course many things have changed to make it to get to where it is now. Whether it is due to global warming or the continued evolving of the Earth isn't the topic here.
But the climate had changed in the area. I remember when I was in elementary school we were barraged with the impending ice age that was being predicted.
But I also recall summers that had changed over the years from dry heat to almost always moist and thunder stormy for much of the summer months. I remember winters that went from what seemed like rain at least once a week all winter to maybe a week or less max for all the fall and winter.
So all the trees and plants in the area would be green in the spring and brown in the mid summer. With the change in weather patterns that became green in the winter with the rains and dead and brown most of the rest of the year!
In the mountains the continuing drought caused the forests to be susceptible to bugs and disease. It apparently went on pretty much unnoticed for many years by most people and agencies. Lots of dead trees here and there.

Now we're up to early 2003. The dead trees are noticed. It was estimated back before all the fires began to happen in May 2003 that the forest was as much as 80% dead in sections, with the overall forest health at over 60% dead trees. Jokes were made about the "California Golden Pine" in reference to all the dead trees in the San Bernardino mountains.
So committees were formed, hearings were held, what would be the 'worst case scenario' since so many people were now full time residents of the mountain communities? I attended several of those hearings, the biggest was a day long think and discuss tank at the Lake Arrowhead lodge and was put on by a formed organization called the Mountain Area Safety Task force (MAST). With representatives from local and state law enforcement, fire departments, local and state road and highway departments and community leaders, scenarios were discussed, evacuation plans were devised and everybody mainly hoped for the best.

The scenario that became the 'model' as most plausible to occur was this, mountain resident decides to remove the dead tree in his yard. While cutting it down, since this citizen is not equipped to properly and safely remove a tree, a section of it falls on any nearby power lines and causes the lines to arc igniting the tinder dry dead tree. The fire spreads very rapidly and other nearby dead grasses and trees also ignite. It was anticipated that this scenario would be out of control in less than 20 minutes if there were any breezes at the time. Still handle-able for a few hours with minimal structure loss with no winds. No one was anticipating the annual strong Santa Ana winds in the equations.

M.A.S.T. getting into action, has the four main highways up the mountains closed and they become one way, down, to facilitate evacuations. The mountain school buses would evacuate any and all summer camps in the areas being evacuated, then assist with civilian evacuations of those effected areas.

That was the general plan anyway. Cal-Trans left piles of fold up barriers at all the major intersections to facilitate road closures. People were told via the press, and on local TV and radio stations to be ready 'just in case'. Nobody expected the entire mountains to ever have to be evacuated, just areas at a time with the Lake Arrowhead area as a likely first fire spot.

The first event occurred in June 2003 below the Running Springs area and started almost halfway up the mountain from the Highland area. It was bad but was pretty quickly handled with only some evacuations required. A second fire in the almost same area of Running Springs in early September '03 was MUCH worse with most of the village evacuated and this fire was to be the start of the worst fire season in San Bernardino County for several years.

It started on September 5th and if I'm remembering correctly it began with the classic smoker throwing out a still lit cigarette, it lands in the dry weeds and with the winds from passing vehicles to fan it, starts a fast moving grass fire. This time though, the grass starts the dead trees and between the grass and trees it pretty quickly works its way up the mountains towards Running Springs. With all the dead growth in the areas, no chances were taken. Very quickly mandatory evacuations were ordered. Our department was also mobilized to help evacuate peoples pets and livestock. Minimal staffing was kept in the valley with everyone else being sent to the fire. The staff from the valley met at the first ICP (Incident Command Post) with the two mountain officers already working at the evacuations. As the fire burns through the area of the Command Post, it gets moved up the mountain area to a flat lot in the Running Springs area itself. So up we all went got set up and then start coordinating evacuations with transfers of those pets to the shelter for housing. People were sent out in teams of two per truck to facilitate rapid removal of whatever animals were at the residence they were sent to. Luckily there were only a few large livestock animals that had to be moved.
That fire became a four day event. Staff were assigned for 24 hour coverage although most all animal evacuations were taken care of the first day and a half. The new Animal Control "Command Post" consisting of a 24 foot long toy hauler trailer with a service radio and generator installed, was used for the first time. Before that, all nighters such as these were spent sleeping in the front seat of a standard sized truck cab. NOT FUN as I know from my personal experience! I'll always wish the county had gotten extended cab trucks back then!

So, that fire was a first test of responses, plans and such, and I know a lot of people were hoping the worst had occurred.

Turned out it was only a small taste of what was to happen in the fall, when the Santa Ana winds always blow.

The rest of the summer there were fires all over the area. Some good sized ones but no "big" ones. In late October 2003 just as now, the Santa Ana's were blowing pretty strong. At the bottom of the Cajon Pass wind gusts can and often do, exceed 60 mph. It was a "Indian Summer" warm day with the winds blowing pretty strongly. Early on a Saturday afternoon I heard about a fire that had started in the area of the Old Waterman Canyon road which was the old highway that was bypassed by the new highway up the mountain. Later it came out that it had been intentionally set by a guy in an older Chevy Astro van. People had seen it being started but with the winds it went from small to totally out of control in a about two hours.
Just 6 hours later it had spread and was working rapidly up towards the town of Crestline. By that evening it was mandatory evacuations, and within three days the entire mountain from Crestline to Big Bear was being evacuated. This fire was given the name "The Old Fire" for the point of origin in Old Waterman Canyon. Less than a week later it was evacuations for EVERYBODY that lived in the mountains. Many residents were caught off guard and many more were caught while down in the valley and were unable to return home. People in many areas had just a few hours to pack up and get out. As most thought it would be just for a few hours, they didn't concern themselves with packing up the pets and taking them with them.

As the fire progressed, many areas of the mountains lost all power. Pets were locked up in homes with no food or water available but what was left out for them or the dogs and cats that could drink from the toilets, many exotic fish were lost in tanks with no filters or power. With owners not able to return, calls began to come in with requests to get the left behind pets out. The department had been working 24/7 to evacuate animals, now it was stepped up as much as possible. Prior permission was gotten to as carefully as possible break in to most of the homes to gain access to the confined animals. Of course, some access was more careful than others, the one I remember being told about was the residence where the front door broke free falling into a glass coffee table and glass shelves breaking a lot of items. Then after getting the animals the door was secured as good as possible until a local wandering black bear got into the house through the broken front door.

As the days went on several homes were entered only to find that the pets had died from lack of food and water. The Humane Society of the United States rolled in and with their crews, they helped take up the slack by the now exhausted staff of the department. As the fire had burned through most of the western most communities by now, the mission shifted to getting food and water for house bound pets and no longer removal. So the teams continued to get into homes, and would leave enough food for several days. Although several Red Cross Evacuation Centers were set up in the general area, many mountain residents were being housed at the old Norton Air Force Base facility due to its proximity.
An area was set up for holding owned dogs and cats there also. Many owners were shocked and upset when they found out that Red Cross centers would not accept pets with the owners. So at those facilities there were problems with people keeping pets in their cars while staying there.

Glen Helen, a county park most famous for concerts and for having the US Festival in the 1980's, is at the intersections of the freeways I-15 and I-215 at the base of the Cajon Pass. This became the main "Fire Camp" and became the joint command post for most all the involved agencies. It was an impressive site seeing hundreds of tents, thousands of firefighters, as well as a city worth of trailers, motor homes and equipment for the fighting of the two giant area fires. The Sheriff's department rodeo grounds at Glen Helen became the area for storing livestock from Devore to Big Bear, about 60 miles of communities. Even a Zoo from Big Bear had several of their large animals stored for a time during the fires when Big bear itself was evacuated.

In the end it was the weather that stopped the fires. It lasted until just after Halloween a little over two weeks if I'm remembering correctly. I do remember being told by a Fire Commander that if the weather hadn't gotten colder and rainy and the winds had not died down, they were not going to be able to stop it until it burned all the way to Big Bear. It was a fire so big it couldn't be stopped by all the people and technology they had for fire fighting.

For us, well Stacy started out with the rescue teams then was sent to the livestock holding facility at Glen Helen as it was being set up. There she was in charge of the facility. I was on some of the rescue teams in the Big Bear area, transported supplies to staff in the valley and the mountains, transported livestock to Glen Helen. I worked the Com Center emergency response command center which was a room with representatives from all the area agencies each with a desk and a phone to take calls or questions from the public or the media, answered many, many phone calls from concerned people from wanting to know about their pets to people from all over the state and country wanting to volunteer or help.

Our daughter Laura was working at the Rancho Cucamonga shelter then, so she was working there and transporting animals.

It was over 6,000 animals that were taken in for the fires. Over 150 large animals and goats were kept at Glen Helen, with many more sent as far as 100 miles away by their owners through private transports.

Yes it was lots of memories for us and everybody involved. Would I say it was our shining moments that defined us in the department? I wouldn't, as it was just a few weeks out of my 25 year career there, and I had a lot of 'adventures'!

Yes there was excitement, a lot of aggravation with our own department, a lot of lost sleep, and a lot of money made with all the mandatory overtime. I have video I took, news stories I recorded on the VCR at home, and several people got together photos of what they'd seen and people that wanted those got them.

I'm sure with the almost every year fires and evacuations new employees are getting their chances to have their memories to talk about a few years after.

Very Short Video of working at a call

It has been a while! All I can say is it got very busy the last couple of months and a very important relative passed away.

So, back to posting these videos and descriptions.

This very short video was taken in 2002 or 2003 I believe. I was called out to assist on this call since I was by now a supervisor and had a pick up truck instead of a 'dog truck' and carried cages and traps. I took the video at a house in Yucaipa, California, which was (and still is last time I checked on-line) a contract city.
It was the all too common call of too many cats in too small a house and family members were concerned to the point that they too action themselves.
The video is pretty self explanatory as videos go like this, I arrived and the guy was just going to catch and hold the cats. That NEVER worked because the cats would know 'somethin's up' and would scratch and bite to keep the person (or you) from from taking or putting them someplace they DO NOT want to go!
And when we got there we were to try and take 'charge' of the call and try to prevent the people from getting hurt too much. Situations like this one though, also common, were when citizens wanted the problem taken care of without ever going in their house.

Although not in the video, another ACO arrived and also helped take the cats from the house to the trucks. Bad part for the cats like these was that since they were almost all kind of 'wild' and in this case were picked up as "owner release" which meant they would generally be 'toast' as soon as they got to the shelter.

But this was the average kind of call everybody got every week, sometimes several times a week!

Short Video of ACO vehicle accident

Next in order is this short video was from a late day vehicle accident an ACO had been involved in.
Luckily for me, not so much for the girl and unlike some of the other emergencies like this I had to go out to, this happened close by to the San Bernardino office in Colton. Only about 10 minutes away. So my response time was fast.

The call came in that she had been involved and I drove out and had to get off the westbound I-10 and then right back on the east bound lanes of Interstate 10. The clips shows that I saw it and couldn't get to it as the vehicles were at the center divider so I waited until she can get going since her truck wasn't damaged beyond the ability to be driven. She got going and over the radio we talked and said the truck could be driven to the shelter so it could be unloaded. She actually had been heading towards the shelter anyway as it was the end of the day and she was on call that night. So I follow her to the shelter where the rest of the video was taken.

She said and says in the video that she was just driving along in the heavy traffic and the car apparently blows a tire and the driver lost control shooting across the other lanes of traffic and right into the Animal Control Truck. She had recently gotten back this truck, it had been a brand new truck and she had gotten assigned the truck. But then she started having truck problems, breakdowns, accidents, and especially with this accident, she began to say that this truck, a Dodge Ram, must have been "possessed"!

This was just an example of the things I did as a supervisor video. Every time an employee was involved in any kind of accident, incident or injury, a supervisor was supposed to go out and check it out and do any necessary reports. I was out on many injuries, accidents, with trucks backing into things being the most common. I would think that by now the trucks would have back up monitors like many cars have.

I recall meeting up and feeling so sorry for the ACO's injured or bitten. One girl had been used as a escape route for a cat when the cat had worked loose from her control stick and had grabbed her leg and dragged it's way up her leg while she tried to pull the cat away with the control stick. It was pretty bad.

This girl wasn't hurt just shaken up pretty good. She just cleaned out her truck and got another one from the next days supervisor.

August 2001 Multi Agency response in Landers

Next in my videos is this call from August 2001. By now I was a Supervisor since September 2000, and I was asked to go out and respond with many ACO's and the desert supervisor to a multi-agency response for an Illegal kennel in the "low desert".

This kennel had been a problem for months, years!
Well back in the acreage and surrounded by fencing and locked gates, Code Enforcement and other County agencies had been battling the owner for years and were never able to get compliance with all the violations and the area neighbor complaints. Then the owner I knew of, and elderly lady, had to be hospitalized, and the people care taking the property were overwhelmed by the situation and went to the County for "help" and to, they thought anyway, help her; the owner.

So this big response was organized and here it was taking place on a Wednesday, and if there was a choice of the day of the week, Animal Control preferred Wednesdays because that was the 'overlap' day for the shifts and had the most staff working. So employees could be pulled for the day and there was still barely enough for adequate coverage.
I had gotten a "dog truck" from the valley and even the newest field ACO was told to drive out from San Bernardino, over 2 hours away. Stacy with the desert supervisor in her truck and me in the truck I had drove out from the Victorville area, over an hour and half away, we all got up and out early to arrive at the staging area around 8:30 in the morning in Yucca Valley, and then all convoy out to the property.

That is what much of this video is, briefly the arriving and then the driving out to the place. I left it mostly in the video since I had recorded quite a bit of the audio from the service radios in the truck of Sheriff's Dispatch in the Victorville area and of Animal Control's dispatch which was in the office in San Bernardino.

I really wish I had had the money to have the very pricy smaller video cameras that were just coming out back then. Still, I only recorded mostly the drive and not the action because that was the easiest to record with one very large camcorder! So many better and micro small cameras are available in this digital age over what was there in the analog age of only 1o years ago! As I've said in one of these other posts, the ability to have cameras and video is so relatively inexpensive and of so much better quality, were I still in the business I'd have a rolling studio with cameras!

Anyway, as you'll see in the video, after the fairly long drive to the place, we all arrived at the property and the leader Code Enforcement and Sheriff vehicles, loaded with warrants and already researched violations, cut the lock and opened the gates so everybody could get in. Then we drove the winding path to the main "house" and the makeshift animal pens. Every animal on the property was to be impounded and taken away.

As everybody was just starting I quickly walked through showing the bulk of the pens on the property. All the generations of inbred fairly feral and mostly untouchable dogs in all the hot, dusty, pretty poor quality pens for the conditions an owner being one of those "animal lovers"!

The rest of the video shows several of the ACO's in the process of capturing dogs in one of the pens. Those "control sticks" we all had were good things to have I can guarantee, but also could be cumbersome and difficult to use, especially in situations like this with close quarters and hiding areas for the dogs. It took hours to get the dogs mostly caught. I think a few did escape during the day. Then the last seen is of a run to an area shelter were the dogs were taken, over and over during that day.
The overall outcome from all the effort and work to get them all picked up was pretty much wasted after only a few days when the owner had "lawyered up" from the hospital and the county wound up giving most if not all of the surviving dogs back! Quite a few had been euthanized at the shelters for being too sick or too aggressive.

Just a day in the life!

High Desert Cruelty Call- March 2000

In trying to keep the few videos I have in order this one is the next one up.
It was one of those late in the day guaranteed overtime calls on a Saturday, my Friday, night that had to be handled "per the Supervisor".
That usually meant that enough complaints had come in that it could have become a major problem publicity wise. So I got the call.
This property was in the El Mirage area of the county and at least with this kind of call, as long as animals didn't have to get picked up, it was just the one call then home.
I now don't recall if I was carrying the camcorder with me that day or if I had asked Stacy to meet me and bring it with her, but the video was taken with the RCA full size VHS camcorder so it wasn't too easy to carry around in the truck.
The call was many animals, too many actually for the area zoning, and they were not being cared for properly. This usually meant dirty or dilapidated pens or corrals, little or no food and or water, and too much poop build up. And in this case it was a combination of most of them!
We arrived and found that nobody was home at the house on the property and as there was no parameter fence-line we easily drove back to the area of some pens and walked around from there.
While we were there checking out the place a neighbor driving by noticed the animal control trucks and stopped to see what was going on. Nosy or not he was were we got most of the information about the place than we had surmised from checking the property out.

First thing we found was all the pens had no water or the level was so far down the animals couldn't reach it. Even though this was in March in the high desert, animals always needed constant access to clean water. Animals such as the numerous pigs and chickens don't do well with no water around.
We couldn't find a way to get the water system working to get water flowing to the area of the pens. The neighbor when he got there, said that the pump to get it out that far was broken. So we started to haul out five gallon buckets of water using empty containers we found.
As the video shows the pigs went crazy for the water they were so thirsty and I recall refilling their water container several times before there was any water left standing in their pen.

And it was the same story with almost all the animals so it appeared to us that the animals had been without water for a day at least. After we got everything watered then it was go back and take a closer look at the true conditions of the animals.
As the video shows, several horses and a group of the cattle and goats were in pretty bad condition. Most people didn't know, or care, that the sandy desert soil, especially if the animal didn't have much area to walk in or exercise in causes their hooves to grow without any wearing down that would happen in the wild or in other areas of the county. A horse should have hooves checked and trimmed every eight weeks and cattle and goats too if needed. So as you can see in the video, horses with hooves too long and the cattle with their hooves so long it would be close to permanently injuring their feet in several pens.
Then it was all the illegal animals on this property, the fighting roosters, all illegal. You were only allowed to keep up to 5 roosters out there, but roosters kept in the cages that all those were housed were generally only kept for fighting purposes. The number of large livestock, all illegal except for the 9 large animals that would have been allowed to be kept for the size of the property. And ordering a vet and farrier check on all of them? VERY expensive, but that's what the Notice of Violation left on their door at the house said.
An N.O.V. gave a finite amount of time, usually starting at 30 days for something like this, to get going on working on correcting the violations listed on the form.
All told I'm thinking it was about two hours for both myself and Stacy to water and check all the animals at this place. The next workday, Wednesday for me, I turned in the original video to the main office for the "Investigator" to review and check into.
I remember making one check back a few weeks later to see what if anything had been done. Not much except the water was working again to the pens. I got the usual excuses about taking time finding a Vet they afford to come out and on and on. Then the Investigator and Code Enforcement had the ball, I no longer remember if they dropped it or not!
Main thing for me was in July, just a few months later, I got bitten in the head by the Rottweiler on a call in Fontana, got office duty for a few weeks and then got hired on as the new Wednesday to Saturday Shift Supervisor.

Meth House Call- Video

This call, as I say in the video, was day two of a call that began when a fire at an in the middle of nowhere ranch led to the discovery of the meth lab that was there. The Fire Department and the Sheriff's department usually responded to calls like that together, this time it paid off for them. For the owners, not so much.

I had begun to stop leaving the date and time on all the time on the camera. I used to get tired of seeing it in most of the videos on shows of the era like "Funniest Home Videos" so I went to great pains to not show it in our videos. If I had at least jotted down the info that would have been a great alternative!
Now, in going over the videos I have while converting them to DVD, I wish I hadn't omitted the information so much as having that day and date sure would help over a decade later!

Back to the call-
It had begun the day before, a Saturday if I remember correctly (see.... no date!), with me having to bring a horse trailer from the valley to help area officer Suzanne, start the process of picking all the animals up that were on the property. All the residents had been arrested and that was standard procedure back then. If there were no people left or identified as care takers for any animals, they all got impounded and could be later reclaimed at the shelter. In this case all the animals were to be taken two hours away to the Devore Animal Shelter.
So after I made the over two hour drive with the trailer we got busy after finally finding the place, literally out in the middle of nowhere off a power line road near the Harper Dry Lake area North and West of the community of Hinkley, California.
Hinkley was later made kind of (in)famous by the 2000, Julia Roberts film "Erin Brockovich" about the polluted and undrinkable water from the chemical plants in the area and the dumped chemicals getting into the local ground water. Oh, and by the way, that is still happening all these years later too. I saw a few months back that bottled water was being trucked in for the school and residents because the water was so unsafe, still!! I guess luckily for me, I always carried my own 5 gallon cold water container in my truck and NEVER drank the local water while 'out in the field'.
Again, back to the call!-
At the 'ranch' there were a couple of dogs and quite a few horses, chickens, pigs, all kinds of hay and feed for everything too. Suzanne and I loaded up our trucks and the trailer with what we could and took it down to Devore and impounded it all. Since everything at the ranch was in OK shape and with all the food and such there, we made sure everything would be alright overnight and arrangements were made to go back the next day with another ACO, Stacy, and the other larger "stock" trailer the department had at the time to pick up all that was left and still there.
We were to pick up the animals and also take all the hay and feed we could load into the trucks and trailers to help feed all the animals we were taking.
As the video shows and I say, it was another two plus hours out the next morning and we get there and see what's still there to take. Believing that, correctly, some of the possible owners of some of the horses might, after hearing of the bust, might sneak in and take their animals. The property being so far out wasn't under any kind of guard overnight. So anything could have happened.
What we did find though on arrival as I mention was that since the place was going to be a "practice burn" and demolished since it was an illegal drug house, the fire department personnel had come through and 'cleaned out' the place of all kinds of equipment that could be used by the station or by them. Things like several generators, power tools, things like that. The thing that bugged us was the personnel that had large livestock at home had taken every bit of the Hay and horse feed that had been there the night before.
Yes, we would have taken it all too had it been there, we still took all the bagged feed still there, but we wouldn't take it for us. It would have been to take care of all the livestock we were taking.

So we loaded everything we could up. I remember that some chickens may have escaped. That did often happen with those especially if there were many loose, even in a large enclosure, it was very difficult to catch and remove them without a few getting out too. They would be left to fend for themselves because after escape they could never be caught again. In typing this I'm remembering the phrase that one ACO used to say all the time about the "circle of life". Oh well.

I know the video doesn't show any of the work of catching and loaded or even unloading the animals. Most of the video, and I had to trim it to fit the 15 minutes YouTube maximum length, is of the long drive out and the desolate area. I know I remember back then I wanted to be able to show what the area was like to drive and be in. Nice in winter and miserable in Summer, Stacy and I once talked about maybe moving farther 'out' since our area had begun to get crowded, to the Barstow area, NOT Hinkley! We'd also thought about moving to the mountains and the Big Bear area, but that area was already overcrowded, winter and summer!

We thought about it, didn't happen. I really have never been a fan of really hot, like over 110 F (+43 C) in the daytime with a low of 90 F (+32 C) at night. That happens in mid summer in that area due to the lower altitude and distance from any cooling winds like the Phelan area had from the Cajon Pass and the valley that cooled that high desert area down except for a few summer nights each year. Relatively cooler yes, but still often much cooler than out towards Barstow, Dagget and Newberry Springs!

The outcome of the call? Well as I mention in the video, Stacy found paperwork that many of the horses the department had impounded were actually papered and worth a lot of money each. They were all ultimately reclaimed as I recall. I never had to go back out there on any calls so i don't know if the fire department had their burn or not. Probably did though as that was often exactly what happened with drug places like this one was.

So, that's the story of this video!

The Pig Hauler Wreck- Video Memory

Pretty much as Stacy narrates as we were arriving at the beginning of the video, it was during the night of a December 1st, I think in 1991. While we were not 'on-call' that night, it was one of quite a few times that a call had come in that required more than one ACO to handle. In this case it was almost everyone, except for two people, that worked the high desert along with one from the low desert, and a Supervisor that lived in the high desert too.

We had been woken up around midnight or so about this big rig crash on Interstate 40 East of Barstow, California. Up and out in about a half hour to the hour and a half away call, we got there that very early and cold morning.

The truck as you will or have already seen was hauling a large load of pigs to a "Farmer John" processing plant in the Los Angeles area. The story we got when we arrived was that about 11 PM the driver had been reaching to pick up some paperwork somewhere in the truck cab and had drifted off the freeway into the steep center area and when he tried to correct and get back on the freeway it was too late and with the weight of the load and the sandy soil on that steep drop the rig overturned. In the wreck many of the pigs were killed instantly, crushed by the weight of all the other loose pigs in the hauler.
Many were injured, many apparently not injured too badly. In the turn over, the double decker trailer broke open so the ones that could and injured also escaped out into the desert and all around the accident. We were also told that the drivers wife had been a sleep in the sleeper compartment. They were both long gone before we got there. There was speculation that considering that the rig had fallen off from the 'fast lane' that maybe the driver had fallen asleep at the wheel because he should have been in the slow lane or the right of the two lanes going each way.

The California Highway Patrol arrived first, the Barstow station was less than a half hour away, and then the calls went out get people out to round up the escapees and deal with the severely injured survivors.
Animal Control, local ranchers with stock trailers, anybody in the rather isolated area were called out.

I guess luckily for the pigs, even though only temporarily, was the drainage tunnel that was the escape route for many pigs so they didn't have to climb up and be on the freeway, they'd just run through the tunnel and out into the open desert.
First thing was get the pigs! Although not taped we took three or four loads of pigs in our truck and then with the two horse trailer to an area that was set up in the East End of Barstow to hold the 'escapees'. It is no longer there, out of business long before I left, but back then there was the "Wild Horse Truck Stop" and there were also horse corrals set up at the time for some rodeo type activities that used to be staged there.
The CHP and a couple of our ACO's had to shoot the gravely injured pigs that were closest to the scene of the accident. Too many injured and too large to use the drugs that we ACO's carried to deal with severely injured or sick small animals like cats and dogs.
It took hours to catch and transport the pigs. I know that more than a couple of pigs never made it to the temporary storage, thrown in the back of pick up tucks or kept in the trailers of the helpers to become, "the other white meat" for them.
The big rig tow trucks that worked all night to get the rig back up finally were successful a little after sun up.

It was a story on the morning radio news on the Barstow "Highway Station" as well as the Victorville country station we used to listen to at the time, no XM satellite radio for a few years to come back then!
Pretty much everyone that had gone out on this call, since we'd already worked the equivalent of a shift, got to go home and get some sleep. Until the next time!

Video 2 in Chronological order

This video is one of the three I remember being mentioned as having been made for training purposes. This one is geared for "Utility Workers" with the other two being one for Law Enforcement staff and one for Postal Employees.
The footage for this video and the Law Enforcement video were recorded the same day with the same people playing different characters. Many of us "License Checkers" were there for part of the day so they could be the 'actors' or just watch it being made. Since our uniform was basically a Sheriff uniform anyway, someone had borrowed a deputies shirt, they had different shoulder patches, and they just used an ACO badge on that shirt and became the deputy in the video for Law Enforcement. Bullet proof vests weren't worn all the time by police back then as they are now.

In this video, the guy that comes to the door was a field ACO, Dennis, who had actually been off work recovering from a recent motorcycle accident, hence the limp. It was taped at his rental house in San Bernardino. The 'house wife' was played by Sara T., she was also a License Checker and had been hired the same month as I had been back in 1981. And License Checker Danny played the hapless Utility guy who is supposed to be chased by a vicious Great Dane. The dog was borrowed and would not chase anybody! It was take after take to try and get the dog to even look like it was aggressive. One of the final takes was having someone hold the dog in back and then have Danny run and the owner calling the dog. Close enough I guess.

The basic information in the video is actually still the same today for the most part.

The program manager, Pat English, was taped and his voice over done in the basement of the Public Health building in San Bernardino which was were the Audio/Visual section was at the time. The County art department did the cartoon drawings and then it was all edited together. Like I say on the YouTube site, it looks pretty bad by today's standards, a kid could do better nowadays on an old computer, but back in 1982 this was cutting edge stuff. Nobody HAD computers yet! I remember Pat English going on and on about the cost of the "project", his pet project actually since he got to be in the video too.
I do remember some showings being done for and at different groups, but it wasn't long before the tapes were buried in boxes to not see the light of day for over a decade.
When found several of us enjoyed watching the video. By then only one person in the videos still even worked for the department anymore.
I came across this video even years after they had been discovered when cleaning out a storage room in the office for file space. I kept it and am glad I did! It's history!

Till next time, Tad

Some of My Video Memories- POSTED!

I have been very busy the last few months which is the main reason why I haven't been posting lately, I mean, at ALL!

Dog days: the videos, at least some of the ones I have.
I know that were I still 'in the business' I would have a basic rolling video studio with all the small and way more easily placed video cameras that are prevalent today. I truly wish now that I had recorded more video than I did back then. But like many others things recorded at the time it was often taking out the shoulder held, awkward and very heavy, VHS full size Camcorder, or a little later it was the still large 8MM Video Camcorder. And then the little smaller Digital 8 Camcorder.
Our current video camera is High Def and only ounces in weight. But sooooooo many even smaller cameras are available, still and video or that do both. And I'm not talking the Cell Phone cameras, many which now have very good photo and video capabilities.

We've had Camcorders and video cameras since our first one, a Panasonic, in November 1988. So we have lots of 'home movies', and quite a few of our 'work'. Not too many though while out doing the work and those videos are what I've uploaded and posted to be able to add to these blog posts.

This first video is the oldest video I have. I was an Animal Control newbie when the Department had a "maximum enforcement" and a show of force in an always bad area of the county, and because the program manager wanted to be in and on the TV news.
He didn't make it though.

My mother recorded the segment off the TV on our VCR. Although not the best recording, it had held up pretty good for being almost 30 years old when I converted it to DVD.

For this video the best description for it is a blog post I had already written so just go back to the post from August 11, 2009, titled "My First Thirty Seconds of Fame".
The video does help and give some context to the story.

The next few posts will be the same, a video and the 'back story' with it.

ACO Tech Continued, the 800 MHz radios

Over the years we got better trucks, cloth seats, AM/FM radios, a few even with cassette players. With the county upgrade to 800 MHz radios the field officers all got portable radios (HT's). We still had On Call pagers though, all the way up to when we left in 2006. By then several area agencies had gone to a more cell phone like way to communication with dispatch doing away with in truck radios almost all together and relying on a removable radio that only had a charging station under the dash.
Back when we first got the 800 radios they had quite the abilities! You could even make phone calls from your truck through the radio and an all county access number. With that number people could call you too but that more often didn't work well due to the number being used by so many people! Although the phone calls were just like a talking on the radio and so were 'simplex' and not 'duplex' like a phone call is, even a cell phone call. So you had to talk, wait.......... and listen for a response then talk again. Most people you'd try to talk to couldn't get the hang of talk, listen, talk again and so it made for difficult to impossible communicating, so the novelty wore off quickly for me.

I remember listening to my scanner and hearing the Sheriff department employees, street patrol and detectives both, calling in orders for food, calling home and friends and other types of "personal" calls with their county radios. Soon our department had the radio shop 'turn off' the abilities for the valley trucks and cars to make phone calls, not the supervisors though. And I'd still here Daryl or Steve making their personal calls along with the Sheriff's employees. Just no longer the valley field staff of Animal Control. Turns out the cell bills were too high with all the calls that were being made through the radios by various ACO's who were saving minutes by using the new toy of the radio/phone or didn't have cell phones yet. Not everyone did at that time, not like they do now.

To be continued again...........

Patrolling areas I liked, or didn't like

The number one thing all ACO's did and must still do, is drive.
One of the duties listed in the old job description and maybe still listed even with the cost of fuel was (is) "patrol geographic areas".
That could be incredibly boring or incredibly fascinating and fun! There were areas I really liked driving in and areas that really sucked.
My 'worst' areas, the areas I would have rather been almost anywhere else?
Number one would be when we had the city of Ontario. I drove that area for 5 years as it was included in one of three areas that split the "West End" of the San Bernardino Valley from Fontana to the Los Angeles and Riverside county lines. I didn't care for the predominantly gang areas that were located at the time between Holt Blvd North and the 60 Freeway South and from Grove, East to Ramona, West.
For Animal Control lots of cruelty calls came from the area for the "gangsta's" pit bull or pit bull mixed dogs. Often just being there where the public could see them or the gang kids would threaten people with the dogs or attack smaller dogs in the area to prove their dog was the "baddest". And if not those dog calls then it was most often the staked out fighting birds (Roosters) in the back, or front, of peoples yards as bird fighting was big business back then.

Number two area was Lytle Creek. I used to say and I imagine it still would be, "the armpit of the valley". A small village with only one way in or out back up in the foothills it was split into two sections, the lower canyon and the upper canyon. The expensive homes were the upper canyon and most calls there were loose dogs and leash law complaints about neighbors. The lower canyon was the less expensive homes to downright and literal shacks. And getting cooperation was almost never easy. Often the dogs the upper canyon complained about were following the 'creek' up from the lower canyon.
Third would be Bloomington and Fourth would be Muscoy. And Fifth of the bottom five would be Fontana areas we had then didn't then did again as the contract with the city came and went and came back.

My favorite areas were usually in the deserts with hours of long drives which I especially enjoyed when I was involved in a good audio book. When we started getting XM satellite radio the Christmas of 2003, then it was listening to old time radio shows, movie themes or such that I wouldn't want to stop and do the call and have to miss something! Stacy and I both did and still do love the ability to listen to great music or whatever, wherever you are with XM.

In the valley though, and most of my years in the department were in the valley, I liked working in the "Alta Loma" and Rancho Cucamoga areas. Another 5 year stint area but a few years after working in the Chino and Ontario areas, I liked the definite "higher income" level of this area. I was working Sunday to Wednesdays then and with hardly any calls on Sundays it was often just driving around, patrolling and just being seen. I liked seeing all the very expensive collections of autos out on their "Sunday Drives".

One of the most interesting things I used to see often, and in many areas, was as I was driving around in the residential blocks, people would, even if they were in their own yards, pick up their dogs and take them inside when they'd see the truck. Always funny to me!

I got to go to the 1984 Summer Olympics as the shooting events were done out in the Chino area and people would go to see the events and bring their dogs and leave them locked in their cars. As it was summer and hot, the security would find the cars with dogs in it and call for a pick up. We'd make the security break into the vehicle and we'd take the dog. I did that twice in a work week. That kind of call also became a standard summer call in the many restaurant and mall parking lots as the population boomed.

Years later at the Fontana Speedway I was given an all access tour of the facility, got to drive on the racetrack and go see the "executive" and Press viewing boxes as well as got to be in the infield for a race event walking and patrolling with Stacy for our shift of the event. Million dollar RV's and in the middle of the race.
Oh well, more memories later!


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad2

ACO 'Tech'

I was thinking back to how things had evolved over the years, tech wise.

When I started with the department back in 1981, the field officers basically got a citation book, a Thomas Guide map book of San Bernardino County, a rope 'leash', a 'control stick', and a set of keys to a regular Chevy 1/2 or 3/4 ton standard cab pick up with the bed removed and cages welded on the frame instead. Back then we didn't have "HT's" or Handy Talkies, or any cell phones (yet). The only radio in several of the trucks was the VHF radio that in the cars/trucks that was a 'head' unit with a channel selector and a microphone under the dash area with the main radio box that was the size of a large briefcase behind the seat in the trucks, in the trunks in the cars and in the very back in the station wagons the department had.
When 'on-call' each person was given a numerical pager. You'd get a page and have to hunt down a pay phone booth and call in. At least there was the '800' number so it usually didn't cost the quarter to call.

As the years went by most ACO's would acquire or make equipment that would help make the job easier for them.
Pet stores, no Petsmarts yet, could provide decent quality leashes and such. And there were a few companies around that could be found that you could buy equipment from. I located a company in Texas, now long gone, that I spent over $150.00 on for a different kind of control stick and a smaller cat sized model too. Everyone thought I was crazy to spend that much of my own money, but I liked them! The issued control sticks made the 'noose' smaller by pulling the wire from the back. This new type had a tube within a tube with an offset cam to lock it in place. The larger dog sized control stick had the feature of a pull to release "bite bar" that opened the noose and released the animal. Great for very aggressive dogs. I still have the dog control sticks, the cat one failed and could no longer be repaired since the company had gone out of business.

We did start to get better vehicles and by the late 1980's and dual gas tank trucks were in the "fleet" purchases that our department got. Good range but still only AM radios and those lousy vinyl covered seats. Guaranteed to cause a sweaty butt and back!
Before the county upgraded to the 800 megahertz "trunked" systems the VHF radios sent out a tone with the radio signal. After few months it was easy to hear that tone all over the place! Our dispatchers also had to say the station ID at various times during the day.
In those VHF days we had to share the frequency with several other agencies. It could often make it a bit difficult to get a word in edgewise too!
With the trunked radios the stations were all still there but the computer could keep them separated so it seemed like the radio was all ours then.
By the late 1980's even though there was no Internet yet, there were companies springing up that catered to the Animal Control field.
More later........



- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

This Job BITES! Me and others too!

If you have worked with animals, what do you expect? I actually don't recall anybody that wasn't bitten at least once during their time with animal control. The worst was an older gentleman (remember I'm talking about 1986 or '87 or so, so probably about my age now, then) that was working during the departments experiment with volunteer "reserve" Animal Control Officers.
This was Pat's play at trying to get something for nothing by attempting to get people that could cover for the Counties lack of funding to fill positions. Nothing ever changed either in all 25 years! We were more often than not too few people to too many calls.

This guy was very enthusiastic and volunteered more hours than most employees worked! All the volunteers worked with the goal in mind of being hired on full time- paid- when that could happen and the department could actually hire again. I remember only 1 of the 2 or 3 people that were 'reserves' actually being hired. But that was the goal they all had to be hired on. Problem with this guy was he couldn't figure out how to competently and safely use the 'catch pole' or even just a rope or leash. He'd get frustrated and just go and grab whatever dog or cat he was trying to catch bare handed. That really isn't a good idea and he continued to get bitten worse and worse. It culminated with a call he went to in the Running Springs area I believe. He was so badly bitten up and down both forearms that he had to go to the hospital and get checked out. Unfortunately he wasn't around much longer after that, the old "liability" thing came up. He was one of the most enthusiastic people I remember in the department at the time though.

In all my years there I was bitten three times pretty badly by dogs. Each worse than the other. That doesn't count the few cat bites I got, darn sharp teeth that could bite right through gloves! A couple of gopher snake bites, even a couple of bites, pecks, by chickens and other birds. and many scars on my arms from the metal dog and cat traps.
First dog bite was a pick up of a Golden Retriever that had actually bitten the people's new child, so they called, paid the money to have the dog picked up and destroyed. Now I picked up the dog from their house in Chino Hills, then an unincorporated area of the County. But the dog wound up staying in the truck for the entire day as I didn't need to drive to the then new Devore shelter and impound. The dog had gotten into the truck without any difficulty and seemed friendly enough during the day as I checked on it. When I got to the shelter that evening though and opened the cage door to get the dog, it was right there and forcing it's way out. As it was pushing out at just opening the door an so I wasn't quite ready for it I tried to push it back inside to keep it there until I could get a leash out for it. The dog didn't like that though and I was holding the dog by the "scruff" of it's neck it just turned in the loose skin of the neck and bite me in my right hand. And I'm right handed. As this was the first time I'd been bitten I at first wasn't sure how back it had been. I felt more like my hand had been smashed in a vise.
The dog jumped out of the cage and took off running in the shelter yard and I looked down to see blood everywhere and see my index finger joint moving as I moved my finger. As my daughter would say, ew.......!
The dog was caught by other people at the shelter and it got 10 more days of life in quarantine for the bite to me. I got my first visit at a hospital emergency waiting room.

Next bite was several years later and I was doing a quarantine health check on a pit bull in Bloomington California. I was at the house and after talking with the dog's owner I asked her to show me where the dog was so I could see he was "normal and healthy". During a dog bite quarantine we needed to visually inspect the dog under quarantine at least twice during the 10 days period. It was usually at the initial visit and quarantine at the owners house and then about a week later.
The dog had bitten the local mail carrier and it was the 7 day check that I was there. So I'm walking to the carport side of her house and the owner had said the dog was chained up "out back" so I did not expect it to be chained up at the side of the house and in the carport area. We're about half way down the carport and THERE is the dog! He sees me, I see him and then he's charging at me. He is chained and I hope he runs out of chain before he gets to me so I'm running backwards away from him. He gets to the end of the chain and I thought he'd just bumped my right knee area but not bitten. In a few moments I found out I was wrong he got me. I felt warm fluid running down my leg and looked to see a "Z" shaped tear in my pant leg at my knee. Pulling it open to peek I see the bite and the blood. Right leg so I couldn't drive myself anyplace so I was taken to Kaiser Fontana Emergency for treatment.

Third and last time was in July 2000 on a lazy Sunday morning. In the North end of Fontana as i was working from the Rancho Cucamonga shelter then and that area included part of the unincorporated area of North Fontana too.
My first call of the day is to a house complaining about a 'strange' dog in their yard trying to attack them any time they went outside. The house sit back off of Foothill Blvd (route 66) and I parked outside of the block walled yard and went into the yard. I saw 2 dogs, a medium sized dog and a Rottweiler, both with body harnesses on them, and believe the owners dogs had chased away the dog they had called about. I walk up to the door and the people call out before I get there that the Rott is the dog they're complaining about.
They say it isn't theirs but I didn't get the chance to question them why it had a harness on it like the other dog they claimed as theirs. The Rott came around from behind the house and charged me. I got out my collapsible baton, or ASP, and got ready for it so I could smack him if he didn't back off. Most dogs would have by the way, but not this one. I knew from experience that almost any dog will be more aggressive if it feels it is 'protecting' it's own territory and this dog was no different.
He was almost on me and when I went to swing at him he jumped to his right and as I went left to stay head on with him next thing I know is I'm on the ground as I had slipped on the soaked grass. Then the dog is right at my head and biting at me. I'm swinging wildly at the dog with my ASP and I did hit him a couple of times but he still won't back away. The people at the house come out and chase him away. So I get up and my head has a big dull pain on the back right side. As I stand to go out to my truck and get my control stick (the metal pole with the coated wire adjustable noose in it) and as I stand, blood washes all over my face and uniform shirt from my head. Obviously somethings wrong but I wasn't going to be able to handle it myself. I bleed out to my truck and try to call our dispatch first. The shift supervisor Becky is on the radio and tries to contact one of the other two people on duty this morning in the valley. She can't get them and says she'll have them on the way when she can. I decide not to wait forever and change frequencies on the service radio to the Sheriff's dispatch band and call for assistance. There is one and then two sheriff patrol units on scene in less than ten minutes. The first deputy there gets his bio-hazard gloves on to take a look at my head injury. He says it's pretty bad and calls his dispatch to get an ambulance out to the location. He as well as the ambulance attendants when they arrive keep asking me if I feel light headed or dizzy at all and just want me to sit still. By now four patrol cars are at the scene, must have been the blood and all, and they ask me what to do with the dog that got me. So they get out the bean bag firing shotgun in an effort of catch the dog. As I can't go to see what they're doing I wait and listen. After hearing the shotgun going off a deputy comes back to say they can't get the dog and their supervisor wants the dog disposed of because of the "threat to public safety" and so they were going to switch to regular 12 Gage shells and shot the dog. I tell them to just not shoot the dog on the head.
They go and a few minutes later two blasts and it's over. This by now is almost an hour later and just after I've secured my truck and am getting ready for the ambulance ride to the hospital, my fellow ACO's finally arrive. I brief them and Henry was going to take the dogs body and I took the ambulance to the Emergency Room at Kaiser Hospital in Fontana.

A couple of hours later and I am ready to be taken home. I get 13 staples across the tooth tear on the back of my head. My head is all taped up and with all the bloodstains on my shirt I feel like an extra in some war movie.
The doctor for better or worse chose not to shave the area around the bite on my head so days later no one can tell I'm even hurt, but hurt it does! And later that first day and a for the longest time, much longer that the head injury did, my right shoulder hurt and was really messed up. Apparently in the fall and swinging the ASP in attempts, to let's be honest here, kill that fricking dog, I really messed up the rotator cuff.

So, did the Rott actually bite me or was the head injury a result of a buried lawn sprinkler head? I don't know. Stacy seemed to think the sprinkler head. I felt and the ER doctor agreed with the plausibility of it that the Rottweiler could have gotten me with a canine tooth along the back of my head. All I know is the dog was right above me and was biting at my head as I tried to defend myself and the old thing of it all happened so fast, I just am not sure. Then or now.

The overall change to come out of this last incident was that the time I spent on "light duty" while recuperating gave me the insight and the office and office staff got to know me better than as the one that always argued on the radio. Which helped me get the supervisor position that came open while I was recuperating. And that was how I spent may last few years there as a supervisor.

More later.

So you want to help the animals?

That is what you'd think isn't it? I mean working in Animal Control you'd think that you would be involved with helping and saving animals. And actually on the application and in the interview (if you get that far!) you will get questions of your experience working with animals. I was asked on my interview and when I was a supervisor I asked those questions too.

Except that for just about, I'd say 80% of your calls and contact in the job, you look at and talk about animals but you don't actually take care of or 'save' anything! Almost all the routine calls would usually be the neighbor complaint about another neighbor. Their pet(s) running loose or being too noisy, smelly, skinny, fat, old, young, too close to the neighbors house or property line and on and on and on!
And yes, over my years I responded to calls for everything I listed above and much, much more.
I recall when I'd started in 1981 I was excited to be in 'law enforcement' and that is actually what you're in! It was (is) your job to 'enforce' the County and State laws as it relates to animals and animal care. You get the "guidelines" (if you screw up "you should have read the Standard Practice Manual") and you have to deal with the situations, both good and bad, generally by yourself.
I do agree that for many calls the main thing was educating the person or public. Most citizens never took the time to learn or even investigate the ordinances (laws) until you're knocking on their door. And while many laws were often more or less common since, others, not so much!

I know in an earlier post I mentioned the "animal lover" and those people could often be the worst offenders! Many thought that since they thought they 'knew' animals so well they couldn't be at fault.

I am again hoping to get more posts going on this blog. It was 25 years after all and all those days, experiences and memories. I just have to get them written!



- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad