It's a Dog-Eat-Dog World

I did some home visits yesterday at work... I like getting out “in the field”, as we call it... Beyond being a nice break from being stuck in the office, it’s a valuable method of supervising probationers... We get an idea of their living situation, get to see them in their natural environment, and since the home visits are normally unannounced, we often get a pretty accurate snapshot of their lives...not the fabricated b.s. that they feed us at their appointments in our office...

Yesterday, we were at one house where, as my partner tried to talk to his probationer, the probationer’s annoying little ankle-biter kept barking and barking and barking and barking right at our feet... I kept waiting for the probationer to turn his head so I could clobber that damn dog with my heavy duty Maglite flashlight...but no such luck...

We commonly encounter animals on home visits... Many times, the pet owners are kind enough to put their dogs up without us having to ask, or the dogs are so mild-mannered that they are no issue... The yappy ankle-biter yesterday was an example of a fairly common occurrence, for whatever reasons: people don’t put their animals up, and we’re left with the annoyance of non-stop barking, jumping, crotch-sniffing, and hand-licking... There’s nothing like trying to have a serious conversation with a probationer while a dog sniffs your crotch... We could always ask the probationer to put the dog up, but I’m not a big fan of letting a probationer out of my sight to go into a room where God-knows-what might be stashed that the probationer can use to cause us harm... So it’s a judgment call... If the animal is simply annoying, I generally choose to just put up with it, rather than give the probationer the opportunity to produce a bazooka from another room...

Animals also stink...especially when probationers allow their animals urinate and defecate all over the house...and don’t clean it up... More times that I can count, I’ve had to dodge dog crap and cat crap as I’ve walked through a house... The smell of cat urine is always a treat to encounter, too...especially in the summer...when probationers don’t have air conditioning...or any discernible air flow... I seriously don’t understand how people can live in those conditions...

I’ve had several memorable experiences with animals... Several years ago, I was hooking someone up to home detention equipment... He lived out in the country, and when I got there, I got all the home detention equipment--three large boxes that occupied both of my hands and an elbow that pressed the third box to my side--out of my car and was walking toward the house when I heard a crashing sound in the nearby woods... Out of the woods came a 200-pound Rottweiler... I was caught in no-man’s land: too far from my car, and not close enough to the house to take cover, with the dog gaining ground on me rapidly... My only option was to drop everything and draw my duty weapon as the dog charged toward me... I remember wondering if a 9mm round will do anything to a dog this size other than piss it off... About the time I was beginning to squeeze the trigger and pray that the bullet wouldn’t ricochet off the dog’s head and come back and hit me, the probationer came out the front door yelling, “Don’t shoot my dog!” Fortunately for everyone, he called his dog off, and disaster--either for me or for the dog--was averted... Turns out, the dog was the nicest 200-pound Rottweiler you’d ever meet... But our introduction was a little traumatic...

I was doing a home visit one night with a police officer, and while he was talking to the probationer, I took a look in the bedroom for anything I might find... As I stood a few steps into the bedroom, scanning the bedroom for alcohol, drugs, and weapons, an enormous form rose from the other side of the bed... I let out an involuntary expletive in surprise as the biggest Great Dane I’ve ever seen rose in slow motion and sauntered toward me like some creature out of Star Wars, covering several feet in distance at a time with each stride... I heard the probationer say, “Oh, my dog’s in there”... Thanks for the warning... That dog was friendly, too, but they aren’t always...

During a home visit with another probation officer one night, we got to a house with a long dark driveway full of cars, which required us to park at the end, near the street, and walk several yards to the front door... In our way were four Pit Bulls... As we watched the dogs for a minute or two, my partner asked me what I thought we should do... I decided that we’ll just get out and see how things go with the dogs... Not all Pit Bulls are mean, you know... My partner wasn’t thrilled, but since I’m her supervisor, I think she felt pressured to go along with what I said without expressing her reservations about the plan... I’m not sure we made it five steps out of the car before it became clear that my plan was not a good one... Not all Pit Bulls are mean, but the ones that growl, bare their teeth, don’t wag their tails, form a pack, and start circling you are, indeed, the mean ones... We were able to retreat to the car without being bitten, but my partner didn’t talk to me for about an hour afterwards...

It’s not just the big dogs that are problematic... I have a police officer friend who was bitten by a Jack Russell Terrier... I’ve had Beagles indicate no intention of letting me pass unscathed... And Poodles are about the nastiest little dogs, when it comes to biting...











After the annoying barking dog yesterday, my partner and I encountered a Weimaraner later in the day... Real pretty grey dog with eerie blue eyes... He was real interested in us as we pulled in, and he came running over to the car... Fortunately, his little nub of a tail was wagging, so we were somewhat confident in getting out of the car (plus, he was on my partner’s side of the car, so I was REAL confident getting out)... He was friendly, but his owner never put him up, so we had the dog sniffing our crotches and trying to run between our legs as we climbed stairs...

Good times...good times...

I came home at the end of the day to find that my Chow mix had gotten into the kitchen trash for the 7 billionth time... I normally remember to move it out of his reach before I leave for the day, but I had forgotten yesterday...and he makes us pay dearly every single time I forget...

I used to like dogs... Now, I could do just fine without them...