Singing the Dogcatcher's Blues
Dec. 22nd, 2009 08:48 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
crysania4I'm reading this book called The Dog Rules (Damn Near Everything by William J. Thomas. It's a very silly book and I'm enjoying it a lot. But last night I read a chapter and I laughed out loud at it. I know of you will stop reading because it seems sad, but trust me. Read through to the end. It's really quite funny.
-------
You're a uniformed officer in the unruly, quicksilver city of slow-driving tourists and fast-shuffling dealers where tourists from as far away as Japan come to watch water fall into a hole.
Your beat is the street, the mean street of strays that society has turned its back on, the mutts that don't amount to much.
Your name is Randy, you're an officer with the humane society in the city of Niagara Falls, and this is just one of a thousand stories in the Honeymoon Capital of the World, a true story set in the city that never sleeps because newly weds keep everybody awake all night. It's the only place in the world where headboards come fitted with mufflers.
It's a dog-eat-dog world and these are the dreaded dog days of summer, and nobody knows this better than you -- you're the dogcatcher.
It's hot, and it's dank, and as you wipe the sweat from your face and neck with a handkerchief, the radio on your belt crackles your name and badge number.
They've found you again, and there's no dodging the dispatcher.
You jump into your truck, and you scream loud enough to part curtains all up and down the street. It's not failure or frustration, but there's that too. No, this time you just sat on that long-tooth, steel grooming brush you thought you lost weeks ago.
Your name is Randy, you're a hardworking officer doing an impossible job in an unforgiving city, and now you've got a sore bum to boot.
You've rescued eight dogs from as many steaming cars in the last two days alone, and this call is yet another emergency in four long years of emergencies in the business of life and death, chase and rescue, cats up trees and dogs crapping on the lawns of cranky neighbors.
This time it's a red alert, and the crisis call comes from the parking lot at Marineland: An unresponsive dog locked in a van. Top priority. Expect the worst. Just do the best you can.
It's the same old story with slightly different details: medium-size dog in a red minivan with tinted windows and American license plates.
The darkly tinted windows are down a couple of inches and the Marineland security guys who are now helping you rock the vehicle haven o idea how long the dog's been lying there, motionless on the back floor.
No response from the shaking, you go to Plan B, the water bottle. But still there's not a muscle moving from the heavy spritzing you're giving the dog.
The yelling, the hollering and the slapping of the sides of the van elicit the same response, which is no response, and you're down to your very last option.
No time to fetch a slim jim for a clean break-and-enter of the vehicle, you grab your trust tire iron, and you're poised like a home-run hitter about to knock the passenger-side window into the driver's seat. There will be serious damage for sure but maybe, just maybe, life might arise from the debris.
Your name is Randy, you're an officer of the peace about to commit a violent act on a foreign car with a possible corpse in the back. Funny, but your bum's not that sore anymore.
The window explodes in a thousand shards, and your hand finds the door lock even before all the glass hits the pavement.
Backup has arrived, and John, a man you'd trust with your life, rushes through the door, past the seats, and kneels beside the dog on the floor in the back of a van that's an airless oven on a sticky tarmac in a city that's hotter than hell.
A crowd has gathered around the van, and though the mood is silent, the moments pass loud with anticipation. They wait as you wait, with hope.
As John comes back out of the van, without the dog, he's white. He mumbles something as he passes you, and you only catch the swear word.
You dash in yourself, you crouch down, touch the dog, and feel for a pulse, and now it's you that's coming out of the vehicle, white, and silent except for the glass crunching below your shoes. You swear too, using different and even more profanity.
Someone in the crowd asks: "Is the dog dead?" You look at John, he look at you, you both look down.
They ask again, and from somewhere comes the strength for you to respond: "It's stuffed."
"What???"
"The dog is a stuffed dog," you explain.
And there it is. You're an overworked lawman just doing your job, standing behind a car accident you created with one might swing of the tire iron on a torridly hot day in the city beside a natural flush toilet. Your name is Mud.
At this point two things become quite clear to you. First, contrary to the TV ads, not everyone loves Marineland. And second, you can pretty much forget about ever being named Employee of the Month.
For one fleeting second you consider propping the dog up against the passenger door and putting the tire iron in his hands to make it look as if he tried to break out. But that would be wrong.
Besides, the glass is on the inside and there's too much of it to scoop up, and you're out of time anyway because the big American guy with the tattoos on his arms and the keys to the van in his hand is standing there glowering at you. Now his witchy wife is screaming about stupid Canadians and for=sure lawsuits and the little girl is crying: "Mommy! Mommy! They're not going to take my doggie, are they?"
You haven't had a day like this since the rottweiler bit you in the ass, and the cat you were holding at the time, the one you'd rescued from the top of the telephone pole...ran back up it.
Another call crackles on the radio, and you're out of there like Elvis on ice.
It's just another crisis, another critical call or complaint in the city that turns on the wheel of misfortune and spits out emergencies like quarters from a lucky slot machine over at the casino.
Your name is Randy, and your bum's not sore. But it's red.
-------
You're a uniformed officer in the unruly, quicksilver city of slow-driving tourists and fast-shuffling dealers where tourists from as far away as Japan come to watch water fall into a hole.
Your beat is the street, the mean street of strays that society has turned its back on, the mutts that don't amount to much.
Your name is Randy, you're an officer with the humane society in the city of Niagara Falls, and this is just one of a thousand stories in the Honeymoon Capital of the World, a true story set in the city that never sleeps because newly weds keep everybody awake all night. It's the only place in the world where headboards come fitted with mufflers.
It's a dog-eat-dog world and these are the dreaded dog days of summer, and nobody knows this better than you -- you're the dogcatcher.
It's hot, and it's dank, and as you wipe the sweat from your face and neck with a handkerchief, the radio on your belt crackles your name and badge number.
They've found you again, and there's no dodging the dispatcher.
You jump into your truck, and you scream loud enough to part curtains all up and down the street. It's not failure or frustration, but there's that too. No, this time you just sat on that long-tooth, steel grooming brush you thought you lost weeks ago.
Your name is Randy, you're a hardworking officer doing an impossible job in an unforgiving city, and now you've got a sore bum to boot.
You've rescued eight dogs from as many steaming cars in the last two days alone, and this call is yet another emergency in four long years of emergencies in the business of life and death, chase and rescue, cats up trees and dogs crapping on the lawns of cranky neighbors.
This time it's a red alert, and the crisis call comes from the parking lot at Marineland: An unresponsive dog locked in a van. Top priority. Expect the worst. Just do the best you can.
It's the same old story with slightly different details: medium-size dog in a red minivan with tinted windows and American license plates.
The darkly tinted windows are down a couple of inches and the Marineland security guys who are now helping you rock the vehicle haven o idea how long the dog's been lying there, motionless on the back floor.
No response from the shaking, you go to Plan B, the water bottle. But still there's not a muscle moving from the heavy spritzing you're giving the dog.
The yelling, the hollering and the slapping of the sides of the van elicit the same response, which is no response, and you're down to your very last option.
No time to fetch a slim jim for a clean break-and-enter of the vehicle, you grab your trust tire iron, and you're poised like a home-run hitter about to knock the passenger-side window into the driver's seat. There will be serious damage for sure but maybe, just maybe, life might arise from the debris.
Your name is Randy, you're an officer of the peace about to commit a violent act on a foreign car with a possible corpse in the back. Funny, but your bum's not that sore anymore.
The window explodes in a thousand shards, and your hand finds the door lock even before all the glass hits the pavement.
Backup has arrived, and John, a man you'd trust with your life, rushes through the door, past the seats, and kneels beside the dog on the floor in the back of a van that's an airless oven on a sticky tarmac in a city that's hotter than hell.
A crowd has gathered around the van, and though the mood is silent, the moments pass loud with anticipation. They wait as you wait, with hope.
As John comes back out of the van, without the dog, he's white. He mumbles something as he passes you, and you only catch the swear word.
You dash in yourself, you crouch down, touch the dog, and feel for a pulse, and now it's you that's coming out of the vehicle, white, and silent except for the glass crunching below your shoes. You swear too, using different and even more profanity.
Someone in the crowd asks: "Is the dog dead?" You look at John, he look at you, you both look down.
They ask again, and from somewhere comes the strength for you to respond: "It's stuffed."
"What???"
"The dog is a stuffed dog," you explain.
And there it is. You're an overworked lawman just doing your job, standing behind a car accident you created with one might swing of the tire iron on a torridly hot day in the city beside a natural flush toilet. Your name is Mud.
At this point two things become quite clear to you. First, contrary to the TV ads, not everyone loves Marineland. And second, you can pretty much forget about ever being named Employee of the Month.
For one fleeting second you consider propping the dog up against the passenger door and putting the tire iron in his hands to make it look as if he tried to break out. But that would be wrong.
Besides, the glass is on the inside and there's too much of it to scoop up, and you're out of time anyway because the big American guy with the tattoos on his arms and the keys to the van in his hand is standing there glowering at you. Now his witchy wife is screaming about stupid Canadians and for=sure lawsuits and the little girl is crying: "Mommy! Mommy! They're not going to take my doggie, are they?"
You haven't had a day like this since the rottweiler bit you in the ass, and the cat you were holding at the time, the one you'd rescued from the top of the telephone pole...ran back up it.
Another call crackles on the radio, and you're out of there like Elvis on ice.
It's just another crisis, another critical call or complaint in the city that turns on the wheel of misfortune and spits out emergencies like quarters from a lucky slot machine over at the casino.
Your name is Randy, and your bum's not sore. But it's red.