Two important things to get out of the way here.
1. Enough with the fucking dogs.
2. Cops are so goddamn worthless it blows my fucking mind.
And now the story that relates these two things.
So I leave my apartment to go for a jog, and maybe ten minutes in a dog runs up to me, barks, and puts his front paws on my chest.
In case you are one of the three people this has never happened to, when a dog comes out of the dark and jumps on you, it’s fucking scary. Your fight or flight response kicks in, and apparently my fight (or maybe it’s flight) is to yell What the Fuck? really loudly. After some study, I can say that this method is not effective as fight or flight.
Once it’s clear the dog’s not ready to bite my face off into little pieces until I look like Darkman, I start walking away. And the dog follows. Far. So then I walk back the other way, figuring that wherever this dog came from, he’ll go back. Nothing. I walk around like this for a good half hour. Nothing. Back and forth, all the fuck over. Finally I say Fuck it and start jogging again.
This son of a bitch…actually, I don’t want anyone to think that was supposed to be a clever dog pun. This motherfucker follows me no less than three miles. Not to sound like a coldhearted bastard here, but this has happened many times before, and usually the dog loses interest fast. After a good twenty minutes, it’s clear this dog is following me home. That is, assuming I can stop him from getting massacred by a car, which he has a curiosity about that takes him out into the street at every intersection so he can nose in the windows of cars ready to take off at the green light.
Okay, let’s take a break for the dog complaint, and then we’ll get to the part about cops.
People, enough with the fucking dogs. I’m sorry, but good god, this shit is out of hand. Jogging in the evenings, I would say a dog comes running at me out of fucking nowhere at least twice a month. Make one of the hundred excuses. He wouldn’t hurt you. He’s just out front taking a shit. You just startled him. Say whatever you want, but frankly I think I’m within my rights as a man to jog down a sidewalk and be left alone. Or at least to not have the holy shit scared out of me. I think that if I sat in my yard with a Jason mask and scared the shit of whoever came by, it wouldn’t be long before I had legal problems to compliment my mental problems.
And how often are you walking in a residential area when you pass by a house where a dog is going absolutely apeshit, doing his damndest to scare the shit out of you through the fence? These assholes will follow you along the sidewalk, step by step, and then once you’ve passed they keep barking until you’re out of sight. And when I yell back, I’m an insensitive asshole. Hey, it’s just a dog, man.
Fuck you!
It’s not just a dog, it’s YOUR dog. YOU decided to take this animal into your home. That’s fine, but when it starts to interfere with my ability to walk on a goddamn sidewalk, that’s a fucking problem for me.
If you don’t have time to train a dog, walk the dog, play with the dog, and generally maintain and love the dog, you don’t have time to own the dog. Guess what, you can’t just have a kid and leave him naked in the backyard all fucking day and night. You can’t have a retarded son and just tell people not to worry about it when he comes running out of the trees towards people at night. That’s just not happening.
This particular dog was very nice and looked to be well taken care of. I suspect that it getting out was an accident. That’s lucky. When a dog is not nice and not well taken care of, you’re not so lucky. Having been chased on a dirt road by a large, pissed off dog is an experience you don’t fucking forget.
Not too long ago someone said I was breed prejudiced, which means that I have prejudices against certain breeds of dogs, not people. My people prejudices are well-documented already (you hear that, people of Boston?). People get mad when you talk about the Pit Bull problem because it turns into a debate of nature versus nurture. Maybe the dogs, when properly trained, are not territorial, overly-strong pricks. Maybe. Maybe it’s got something to do with a lot of the people who are attracted to Pit Bulls. Maybe.
But as a guy who doesn’t own a dog and doesn’t really feel like anyone has the innate right to own a dog, I don’t give a fuck. Whether a pit bull is an asshole because it was raised wrong or because it’s in its nature, it’s still an asshole. If you go apeshit and disfigure someone in a bar fight, good luck getting out of a conviction by debating whether you did it because someone taught you or because it’s just in your nature.
This is coming from someone who genuinely believes that human life is worth almost nothing: One human life is worth more than an entire breed of dogs. You could convince me that it would be great if a pack of Schnauzers ripped Hitler apart, but we don’t get to choose. We don’t pick who gets mauled by dogs. What we can pick is the dog that’s doing the mauling, and if we can pick reasonably I think we can avoid more serious injury.
The most common platitude is that there are no bad dogs, only bad owners. I don’t disagree with that. But I can’t euthanize the owners. Believe me, I’ve stood outside with petitions to put a number of people down, but the public is just not ready for it yet.
How about a compromise with this dog shit: How about a fucking license to get a dog? You have to get a license for a gun, and I guarantee you that a gun is not going to come running out on the lawn and start firing at someone. Maybe you need to demonstrate a little financial responsibility, and maybe that you don’t live in a one bedroom apartment.
Alright enough about that. And dog owners, you are definitely going to want to read this next part.
So I get the stray dog back to my apartment. I figure I can hang onto him long enough to call the Humane Society or animal control to pick him up.
He’s drinking from the toilet when I get the Humane Society machine, which says they don’t open to 11. Okay, cool. I know they’re not running a goddamn Fortune 500 company or anything, so shit hours are forgiven.
Then I get animal control, which is basically the police.
Anyone who has ever asked the police for anything can guess how this is going to turn out.
The dispatcher asks what’s going on and I give her the lowdown. She says, “There is no animal control officer on duty until 11 AM.” It is 10 PM, by the way.
I say, “Okay, but I can’t keep this dog here overnight. I live in an apartment and I can’t do that.”
She says, “You can’t keep him until 11?”
I say, “No. What other options do I have?”
She says, “You can release him. That’s the only other thing you can do.”
This was followed by a good five-count of stunned silence.
As demonstrated above, I am clearly not an animal lover. I tolerate animals, and I don’t go out of my way to make their lives shitty, but I sure as hell won’t be riding any PETA floats any time before my next 9 severe head injuries. But even to my uncaring ears, just re-releasing a dog seemed insane. If they have to catch him tomorrow, won’t that just be more work than coming and getting him right now, while I have him leashed up with a purple rope that’s supposed to be used as a sex toy? Which he fucking completely ruined, by the way.
Without getting too into the story, some friends save the evening, take the dog, and they are great. But in the course of that we find out even more about how shitty the police are.
Let’s start at the beginning. Animal control does not begin until 11 AM on a weekday? Bankers’ hours are bullshit, so this is bullshit beyond bullshit. This isn’t a fucking head shop we’re talking about here. And if they open at 11, what time do you think they close? Well, it’s before 10. I can tell you that with absolute fucking certainty. So less than 12 hours of service in a 24-hour day. So I guess if a raccoon breaks into your house, raccoons being nocturnal, you’re fucked. In fact, you should just rob a bank at midnight in a raccoon suit. They’ll never fucking catch you unless you get trapped in the vault for 11 hours plus whatever time it takes them to get the fuck over there. The early bird gets the worm, so I guess animal control has taken itself out of both the worm and bird games.
Okay, then this lady is incredulous that I’m not keeping the dog at my place. Hey, fuck you lady! I know that you’re associated with the cops and that means you are completely out of touch with humanity, but that’s not happening. Maybe I could get away with it, and maybe my neighbors get pissed, or maybe my neighbors plain don’t like me, and maybe my landlord is knocking on the door in the morning. Shit, he would only have to get here sometime before NOON to see the dog and justifiably ask me to leave. And maybe the chance is slight, but that’s a slight chance of me having to find another apartment with my new shitty reference, take time out of my life to pack and move ALL my shit somewhere else just because of some fucking dog that I shouldn’t even be dealing with in the first place. So fuck you, lady. No, I can’t keep it here, nor would I. It’s just until 11 AM? Can I bring it to your place? And am I supposed to call in to work tomorrow and explain that I’m dogsitting a refugee dog, so I’ll be in later? That’s a great plan. Fun for me, too.
Through more proceedings we discover that the excuse for no one coming to pick up this dog is that police have “higher priorities” than lost animals.
Let me explain priorities to you.
If my first priority is my health, I don’t go to work when I’m sick. But when I’m not sick and my first priority is being met, I GO TO FUCKING WORK. Something being low priority doesn’t mean you don’t do it. It just means that it doesn’t take position 1. So if you are en route to pick up a dog and some asshole is smashing a window at Burger King, by all means, feel free to go clear that up first. But when you’re fucking around, pulling people over for not complete stopping or going three over or FOR WALKING HOME IN A GODDAMN BLIZZARD AND DOING ABSOLUTELY NOTHING, LIKE I WAS LAST YEAR, then feel free to take a little ride over and pick up this fucking dog. I better read the paper tomorrow and see some shit about a hostage situation and forty motorcycle wrecks. You had better have been busy last night.
And who is fucking surprised that the cops, when asked to do something productive and helpful that doesn’t involve tear gassing crowds or berating teens for driving badly, couldn’t give a fuck less? What a shock. They’re normally so gentle, helpful, kind, productive, resourceful, empathetic, realistic, hardworking, jovial, understanding, deliberate, cool-headed, and so on.
All I’m saying is, if you’re going to pull me over and be a complete asshole for no reason, couldn’t you at least do me a favor and pick up a fucking dog once in a while? That seems like more than a fair trade. I understand that it’s the dog owner’s fault, but I’m the one with the dog, and I didn’t do anything wrong. If I can accept that sometimes I’ll be walking home in a blizzard and have to stop while you run my ID for absolutely no reason, can you please just do SOMETHING to help me out. I’ve never asked the cops for shit. This seems like a pretty small favor. Wait, sorry. Pretty small piece of what the fuck they’re supposed to be doing.
Nothing should be easier than coming to get a friendly dog from a specific address. Jesus, I would have even given you a Milano cookie, for crying out loud. But that’s the whole point. You set up the cops to do the easiest possible act of good will, and it’s still well within their job description, and they tell you they’re too busy.
So dogs suck, cops suck, and I guess that means those K-9 units are really suck.