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What I Learned from Working as an Animal Control Officer
Parenting, loose ducks, and firetrucks
Straight out of college, I landed a job working as an animal control officer with the local police department. I must have impressed them with my whisper-soft voice and mild mannerisms. At any rate, the gig was mine and, after a solid two weeks of intense training (during which I accidentally pepper-sprayed myself in the face and learned to catch bats using a tennis racket and a pillowcase), the powers that be declared that I was ready to ride solo.
Off I went that first day, confident in my abilities as an animal-controlling prodigy. My first assignment? A pit bull had a mail carrier cornered on someone’s porch. I drove promptly yet law-abidingly to the rescue.
As I stepped from my vehicle, the dog, a good seventy pounds of growling, snarling muscle and fur, advanced slowly and panic-inducingly in my general direction. One look at those slobbery jaws of death and everything I’d learned flew out my dog-catching skull and into the ether.
Lesson #1: Preparation only goes so far
Despite all the training I received, it was ultimately instinct that carried the day. I pepper sprayed the pooch into submission, slipped the catchpole around his neck, and wrestled him…
