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.
