Things that got stuck in pools

These photos are from the mid 1980's at a call in the Rialto California area. I responded to assist this relatively new ACO get this skunk out of this residents drained pool. This one was easy to see how it happened, skunks are very near sighted so as it was following its nose around the back yard, plop into the empty pool.

The problem was, skunks being skunks, have that VERY nasty spray. Up to ten feet away and usually several times before they'd run out of 'ammunition'. So the trick would be getting it caught and out WITHOUT it spraying and wrecking everybodies day!! Going down there to get it was out of the question, unless you liked getting sprayed.

I remember what we did was kind of herd it to the shallow end where we could reach it as she was trying to do in the second photo and as you can see we caught it with both of our Control Sticks in the photo above. One stick got the "business end" pinning the rear legs and tail so it couldn't spray and the other around the front end and pull it out. Skunks usually can't spray if they can't lift their tail. Unfortunately for Mr or Ms skunk, in a residential area like this and because skunks were considered "high risk" rabies carriers, just after this photo was taken it was the end of the road for the skunk.

Over the years I fished many animals out of pools, both full of water and empty. I got a horse out of an empty pool in Rancho Cucamonga. It just couldn't figure out how to walk up to the shallow end and up the steps. It took quite a while to finally get it out, but we did. Went to one call to a vacant hose where the previous tenants had moved away with the back yard pool full of water. It took a dog to fall into the green pool, must have thought it was a small lawn, and be there in the summer for a few weeks before the neighbors couldn't stand the smell anymore and called the police who then called animal control after going out and finding a gross green cesspool with several dead animals in various states of liquid decomposition floating in it. And I got the call!!! It was really disgusting when an animal was 'falling apart' in the heat of summer or in water like a pool. I think you can get the idea without more graphic detail!

I also got many still alive animals out. I remember one call where both of these peoples Dobermans had fallen into their pool. The owners weren't home so the neighbors watching the house for them called when they got home and discovered them in the pool and I responded to that call too. The dogs were both in the shallow end standing on the steps into the pool, but couldn't climb out on their own. The smaller female wasn't too hard and was very happy to be out. As the neighbors watched her I tried to get the very large and overweight male out. He was a chore! I wound up actually bending my Control Stick to a kind of boomerang shape in the process because he was so heavy. He'd reportedly been in the pool for several hours before they'd called and I'd gotten out there but I finally got him out and he seemed no worse for the wear. Lucky dog!

Till next time, Tad

The dog at the aqueduct, August 2005

These three photos are from a call I met Stacy on at the California Aqueduct section in the Baldy Mesa area West of the Victorville. The California Aqueduct system runs kind of South East and North West across the high desert through this part of Southern California. We both got to the call about the same time and followed the aqueduct security officer West a few miles along the service road to this junction.
We Followed the officer over and then it was "where exactly is the dog stuck in the aqueduct?" "It's right there!" we were told. "Right where?"
Looking closely we could see the red fur and then wondered how in the heck it had gotten where it was! And how would we get it out?


Well, Stacy lying on her stomach was able to just reach the dog with her 'Control Stick' and after getting the dog to back up just enough to get it with the cable noose part of the stick, she got it out and off the girder and up to the walk way.

Turned out that other than being terrified the dog was actually not too bad and Stacy was able to pick up the dog without the control stick and take it to the Apple Valley shelter.


Over the years we got many animals out of unusual situations. The dog with its head stuck in a pipe? Did that, several times with the dogs both dead and alive from the ordeal. Cat's with their heads in cans, jars, bags, none dead this time. A skunk with its head stuck in a jar, a squirrel with its head stuck in a jar, DONE THAT!
Snakes stuck in fences or caught in wiring, done it! Cats ground up in fan belts? Unfortunately, we've done that too. Mainly in apartment parking areas in the winter when cats or kittens would climb into the fan blade housing of the car and stay warm as the engine would cool. Then the car owner would get in to go someplace and the cat would figure to get out until the engine was turned over to start and- too late! All caught up in the fan belts.
As I'd mentioned in an earlier post, this was often where "MacGuyvering" came into play. Dealing with something that no one had before and you might never have to do deal with again!
Tad

Gruesome stuff too! We did it all!

With this group I am showing two calls.

The top two photos are from a horse that was loose and ran out onto a highway in Phelan California. This is early in the morning just a little after sunrise in February 2004, and the accident happened while it was still dark. The driver was on his way to work and told the CHP that the horse ran out and he couldn't avoid it.
I didn't include the horse photos, no need really as you can see that it was hit by the headlight and then fell into the windshield.


The horse was shot by the CHP officer before Stacy had arrived to the call due to its injuries. Badly broken legs and internal injuries from the impact. The Ford wagon was said to be going at least 60 MPH, probably more than that too!
Happened so fast he had no real time to break and hit the horse.

I later arrived with the tilt bed trailer for large dead animals and took care of the horses body. I don't remember anymore if the owner was ever located or not.
If there was one found though, they'd have been looking at quite the cost for all the involved responses and reimbursements for the damage.



These last two photos are from a call that started for us at 2 in the morning a year later in February 2005 out near Hinkley California which is a little community North West from Barstow.
Seems that a large flock of sheep had broken out of their grazing area not far from these tracks and the herder had not stayed with the herd this night as he was supposed to.
Sheep being sheep, stay close together especially at night as it was then. The large herd moved around the area grazing as they went. They unfortunately for them found some good stuff to graze around and on both sides of the train tracks.
Now these are high speed tracks with the average speed of 60 to 70 MPH. A train just like this one came along in the dark and you can see what happened. But again, sheep being sheep, even with all this happening the remaining herd gathered back around the dead and injured sheep only to get hit again by two other fast freights. A lot of dead sheep.
I was the on-call Duty Supervisor that night and when I got the call from the Answering Service after they'd gotten it from the Railroad, I had the on-call officer from the Desert respond and had the San Bernardino valley officer called out to hook up the stock trailer and come on up!
Stacy and I arrived out there around 3:30 in the morning. It was hours longer for the valley ACO to get all the way up to our location as San Bernardino is about two hours from Barstow.
The CHP came out also since the sheep had also caused a couple of vehicle accidents on the nearby highway during the night when the sheep wandered on the highway on their way to the railroad tracks.
There were so many injured but still alive sheep the CHP was willing after they had their supervisor approve it, to start blasting the injured sheep to stop their suffering. Broken backs, smashed off legs, it was pretty sad.
None of us in Animal Control were equipped to handle and destroy a large amount of animals, especially large ones like sheep, to end their suffering.
It took awhile but the CHP officers, and with the ammunition we had, finally had all the injured sheep dead. Then it was the problem of so many dead sheep! By now it was regular day shift and I had our office call out the counties main rendering company, Stiles from Ontario California. Stiles had trucks all over the county that had contracts to pick up the large dead things like cows from the counties dairies.
The last photo shows the two Stiles trucks loading up the dead sheep. Their two large trucks were able to be filled up with all the over 120 sheep.
It was a lot of work for all of us, working to get the live sheep rounded up and all the dead sheep away from the tracks. The railroad wouldn't stop the trains so we had to be wary of those as they came trough too.
Another almost all night out on a call and a lot of call back money, but the call was taken care of and cleaned up less than 12 hours later.

On the job photos

This group of photos I took when I was 'riding along' with people I was supervising for their yearly evaluations.




Top two photos from April 2005 show Gabriele as she faces off a "vicious" Chihuahua and then doing the ever present paperwork that is just part of the job, then as now!







The last two photos were the day I was riding along with another Stacy, I was this ones supervisor.
In our department we'd get calls for just about everything that crawled, swim, ran and flew, including things like this sick pigeon to take away from this residential driveway in Yucaipa California.
Stacy was getting her gloves on in the top photo and picking up in the last photo.
Unfortunately there wasn't a vet at the time that would take any effort on something like a common bird like a pigeon. So right after she picked it up I gave her to OK to euthanize it before we even left.
It had no leg band or indications of ownership. And any animal that had evidence of there being an owner, was almost always taken to a vet for treatment, at that owners expense by the way!
Both Gabriele and Stacy were very good Animal Control Officers, they worked together well and in five years I seldom got any complaints about them from the public. Stacy was becoming a pretty good investigator and came across a couple of really big animal fighting rings and cruelty cases of her own.
After we retired early and left in 2006 they soon both left Animal Control also, and they became School Police. And they're doing well in that career too!

Odd things one can see in the desert

These photos are of the kind of thing you might see in a TV show or movie that might show the desert residents as possibly being a little 'off'.
Well, there were many places both Stacy and I went to over the years that would have proven those suspicions of mental stability to be true!
My personal favorite was the car tire turned inside out cut to look like a crown and often painted white and used as a planter. I saw many of those planters!!

The top photos are of a real eye catcher that used to be in Lucerne Valley area if you were on Highway 62 and heading to or from the Yucca Valley area. It was right off the highway on the South side and while not right next to it if you saw the moose you'd remember it!
As these photos are almost five years old now, I can't say if the "Moose" is still there or not. Back then, and for several years before I took these photos, for most of the year the moose, and it was/is a full grown stuffed moose, lived inside the 'cage'. At Christmas time the owners moved it out and decorated it the cage and a little area in their yard for the holidays.
I actually never stopped to ask the owners about the history of the moose as there aren't any that live in the San Bernardino County area that I'd ever heard of, where it had come from or how these folks had acquired it. I'm not sure if it still there since I know 'living' out in the weather of the high desert hadn't been too good for the moose, even with the shade roof on the cage.
'He' had become pretty tattered looking as his fur wasn't doing to well with the heat, cold and wind of the area. If anybody that reads this drives that area and it is still there, send me a photo!




Last photo is just of the truck I was driving for a while in 2005. I was on "Route 66" or "National trails Highway" in the Daggett area just East of Barstow and heading East in this shot. Interstate 40 that replaced Route 66 for much of its length, is just South or in the background of this photo.
Perpetually dusty from all the dirt roads away form the towns, on this truck you can also see what the bad roads could do to those front air dams. Even a truck, where the air dams don't hang as close to the ground as a cars would be, most if not all would be damaged, falling off or just gone from the desert trucks.
Over the years many trucks were casualties of the washboard dirt roads of the high and low desert areas. Broken suspension parts, broken frames, cracked welds on the cages, cage doors falling off! All because of the rough roads taking their toll on the trucks.
I'll be honest though, the roads weren't the only problem. Most of the drivers, the ACO's, took no care or concern for their 'assigned' vehicles. They usually felt whatever broke the County would fix it! And would go flying down dirt roads, go out in areas most vehicles wouldn't and shouldn't!
For me, since I didn't want to ever be stranded anyplace, it was slow on those bad roads, tread lightly on those really bad roads. I still had cage hinges break. They were held on by large rivets and the bouncing and weight of metal doors themselves would literally slice through them or pull out the rivets.
I can only think of a few of times I had to be towed in. It was never for a literally broken truck!

Finally found more photos

I finally located some more photos from the time period. As I didn't have a digital camera yet and had used Stacy's or she'd taken the photos, I had to search through the thousands of pictures on a back up hard drive to find more from the era. So these are the next few posts I'll be doing.

These photos actually go with the last post about rooster fighting. They were taken at the Cock Fight I had described I had responded to in the unincorporated Adelanto area of San Bernardino county.
There had been fighting going on earlier in the day and the preparations had been on for an evening competition, before I arrived with the Sheriff's that is!
As I'd said, this set up was the most sophisticated I'd ever been to. It was obvious that it had been operational for a long period of time with all the permanent structures to accommodate the fights. Top photo of the 'ring'. It was quite large and had the bench on the side.

The second photo was where the roosters were kept before their fight. Also much better than many areas I'd seen for the "competitors" to wait.

The property was like so many out in the open desert, it looked just like any other double wide mobile home with a garage and some out buildings all over the area, including our own property!
Unless there was an 'event' going on with all the cars around for it, you would never be able to tell that there was an illegal fighting ring in the garage complete with a snack bar!

Back when we had to pick up or 'impound' all the birds at these raids, we'd taken many really nicely made carrying cages, many were really nice wood with ornate decorations on some. We thought those must have been for the winning birds, but we needed them for anything we could put in them to take them to the shelter.

Rooster Fighters

I know, I know. It has been over a month since the last post.
I get these great ideas for topics and even kind of plan out what I want to say. Unfortunately these ideas often occur in the middle of the night on the occasions when I can't sleep or when I can't start typing on the thought.
I'll start off with comments on a TV show I was watching and go ramble on from there!

It was an episode of Animal Cops Phoenix on Animal Planet. This was one of a couple of episodes I'd recorded a month or so ago and just finally watching. Of all the different geographical areas of the shows in the series of Animal Cops, the shows from the Phoenix Arizona area remind me most of the High Desert areas of San Bernardino County that I enjoyed working. Also with Phoenix being much more metropolitan, they also show areas that remind me of many areas 'down in the valley', places like Muscoy, Bloomington and South Fontana that were also areas I'd worked over my decades with Animal Control.

In this particular episode, their "guys" had been called out to go with their local law enforcement to raid a back yard rooster or cock fighting facility in their area. I recalled the times when my department first began responding to these places. I think I may have already written about an example of this in older posts but the first ones I was involved in that I really remember were in the Ontario California area. For quite a few years in the 1980's our department had the contract with the City of Ontario for animal control, I know because I worked it for over 5 years myself.
The south end areas of the town was predominantly, but not all, Hispanic "Barrio" and that was were the first cock fighting rings were handled. In those days all the investigation was done by the city police and all paraphernalia, evidence and whatever else was done by them. Our department was the clean up crew and we'd get called out to impound all the birds; dead or alive, as well as whatever the detectives wanted taken away.
I remember on this call that the Ontario P.D. stayed with us, 4 ACO's with their "dog trucks" and the "David unit" which was a truck with a rear lift gate and center open area for large dead animals, along with the stock trailer on one of the trucks. It was a slow process that had begun in the afternoon and at the 11 PM shift change the PD just disappeared! We'd noticed when after the Police cars left, area residents started to come and check out what we were doing. We'd all done several trips to Devore before this point to take loads, and we all decided to wrap it up as quickly as we could now!

I thought about how far things had come for our department and this one too.
Back in the 1980's and 1990's, ALL the birds would be picked up alive and taken to the shelter. By the 2000's, it was down to maybe just 5 birds for evidentary purposes. In the show I watched all fighting birds were photographed, and most all were euthanized on the spot. Although for us euthanasia was the ultimate outcome weeks or months later for most of what we'd impound, until they started to get stolen back. Read on!
It was nothing but a pain to impound transport and care for upwards off 150 to 200 roosters that couldn't even see each other or they'd try to fight. They always took hours and hours to handle no matter how many ACO's were there. The department had only one stock trailer at the time so it would be fill that up with birds in carriers and cages, then fit as many of the carriers in the truck cages as well. Massive overtime was always assured if you were unlucky enough to get one of these calls in your area or had to go assist the person who got a call! And they almost ALWAYS seemed to have these raids on Friday and Saturday evenings!

The first time we went to a large old chicken ranch in Bloomington for a busted fighting ring, was the first time we got the OK to not only take all the birds but confiscate as many of the row cages they'd be kept in as we could carry. This was quite the boon for us as well as the shelter as to this point the birds were kept in cardboard carriers, boxes, animal crates, whatever was on hand to keep them in. After that call it became routine to take whatever we could find to transport the birds at the time of impound.

At the time, mid 1980's, the crime of Cock Fighting was in the news and considered almost a felony in scope so one thought at the time of impounding everything was due to the fact that owning or fighting birds was illegal anyway, and zoning regulations prevented almost all areas of San Bernardino County from even owning roosters, so take them all. And since many of the bird owners had scattered on arrival of the police, if they came to try and claim their birds they could be cited then. That last part never happened though!
Actually what started to happen was that the people began to find out where their birds had been taken and impounded. They'd drive up to the Devore Shelter which was and still is, in an isolated area that was easy pickings. So at its worse, fighting birds would be picked up at a raid, then by the following weekend people would have easily gained access to the yards of the shelter and would take back their birds. There was no perimeter alarm and only a 8 foot chain link fence with barbed wire at the top to keep out the bad guys. Only the main building and even then it was only offices had an alarm, if it had been remembered to be turned on, not the entire building! Though not many knew that fact. At least one time I remember that every bird picked up had been stolen back in just a few days. Another time they just started to disappear a few at a time until all gone in just a few weeks.

For a few years this became more of the norm at the shelter. Not just for fighting birds either, dogs, goats even two horses were stolen back from the shelter and never seen again since the owner wasn't quite so dumb to take them home again. They'd take whatever to a friends place for a few months. The community of Muscoy was just down the road from the shelter, about 5 minutes away. We'd started to believe that there were residents from Muscoy would basically go to the shelter to shop and see what they might want to take that week!
What really started to wind down the massive bird impounds though was the bill to the city agency or the county Sheriff's Department for those picked up in unincorporated areas. They, the agencies/departments, wanted the birds all picked up but with trials months down the road, if ever!, the care and feeding of the "evidence" got to become very expensive.
After all the balking on the fees and almost constant theft of any impounded birds, it became Put To Sleep (PTS) all birds that would have been impounded and take away all the bodies, cages, carriers, etc.
And finally, when I was still there, it went to cite release with the bird owners and allow them to take most of their birds themselves just confiscate any and all paraphernalia, drugs, cash on hand etc. and just keep a few birds, if any, as evidence. At the discretion of the law enforcement on the scene. By then, 2006, in most agencies, as crimes went, rooster fighting wasn't the "crime" it had been almost 20 years before.

One of the last organized fight faculties I went to was in the county area of Adelanto in the High Desert west of Victorville. Of course this was my last call on a Saturday night, my Friday, and I was there with another ACO and the Sheriff's department until almost midnight. Like many places, an unassuming kinda run down double wide mobile home on a dirt road a little ways North off the main highway of "Palmdale Road" also called Highway 18, a main East West route from the Palmdale/Lancaster area to Interstate 15 that took many L.A. residents to Las Vegas and beyond.
When I first arrived only one Sheriff's car had arrived before me so we walked around assessing the area to see what we were there for while his partner kept all the people 'company' so they wouldn't try to leave before their back up arrived.
You wouldn't know from the outside but inside what looked to be a garage was a fair sized ring complete with bleachers, a separate snack bar with a grill, cold drinks and a menu sign that told of lunch or dinner. All stocked up for quite an evening!
The tip off to the Sheriff's Department was from a disgruntled person who'd lost quite a bit of money at previous matches. Seems like this was a regularly scheduled event that had many regulars drive up from the L.A. area. It was the first one I'd ever been to that was primarily Asian clientele instead of Hispanic. It was sure funny to hear how so many people were "lost" and found their way to this particular place in all of the desert from Los Angeles! And none of them knew of any illegal activities there! Why would people fight those poor birds! "I was just meeting a friend here, I don't know why he wanted to meet me here!", and on and on.

Just outside in a little blocked off area was a large hole in the ground where the 'losers' had been tossed. Freshest losers on top and feathers under dirt showing the layers that must have been there as one match went down. We found the 'clinic' room where some first aid was given to some that must have been to valuable to just toss if they lost. In that room we came across a great collection of the "Gaffs" or the actual knives that would be attached to many of the roosters.
I kept a set of Gaffs (no I wasn't supposed too but I knew we were moving soon and I wasn't going to buy any!) from this raid as my own trophies of putting this guy, however temporarily, out of business.
You could usually tell a rooster raised for fighting because of it's trimmed comb and removed or cut close natural spurs. They'd be cut down and squared off on each leg to give the best attachment point for the gaffs so in addition to being tied and taped on, they couldn't fall off. Some birds, I was told the ones the owner didn't have enough money to by the expensive gaff sets for, would have sharpened and filed the natural spurs, so that the spurs on the bird would be sharp like a pick to stab the opponent.

The memories!!!!

Till next time, Tad