Police Academy

I’m going to tell you what happened yesterday. I had been thinking it was kind of funny but lying in bed last night I realized how annoyed I was by the system.

I have to take Raimi to work. I can’t take him to a day care beause most will not take a large, un-neutered Ridgeback, there is one directly on my way to work but it doesn’t get good reviews and I’m not leaving an intact male with people I don’t know/trust. He’s fine in the temperature regulated parkade under my building. He goes out for a walk at lunch and naps the rest of the time – or howls ... whatever.

That said; yesterday I had to go the a job site (I work for a condo builder) and he obviously had to come with me. It wasn’t hot, about 18 degrees, and there was a nice breeze. I had to go into a building for about an hour so I parked in the shade, rolled all 4 windows down all the way and left him with water in a dish. I could hear him barking his “Mommeeeeeee … come baaaaaack!” bark. The parking lot is surrounded by three condo buildings so I knew he’d be annoying the populace but he was in the only shade available.

When I returned there was – I’m not kidding – a police car waiting for me and a woman with a little bichon thingie dog standing by my truck. I ignored the cop and looked at her, the obvious instigator of these events. Raimi was safely in the truck looking at me with ‘So let me out now you’re here Mommy’.

The woman started with "I'm a vet" (ya right - tech maybe - what breed of dog is this then?) and insisted that my dog was in distress and had been for over an hour. She said she'd seen far too many dogs suffer from heat stroke and didn't want to see another. I leaned into my truck, checked the air temperature which was no warmer than the exterior (except for some lack of circulation) and looked at Raimi. He was panting but with that normal excited to see his Mommy tongue lolling with a smile kind of pant. If she was a vet she’d know that this dog was not suffering from heat distress – he was in Momma’s Boy distress. So I said ‘So you called the POLICE?”

If you call the Humane Society they ask you standard questions based on the information you give them – in this case the questions would be 1) is the vehicle parked in shade? 2) are the windows open? 3) is the dog in obvious heat related distress? If the answer to these questions is: ‘yes, yes, and well he’s barking and whining a lot’ then they say “Call the police if you’re that concerned, we are off rescuing animals in actual distress.”

So she did. The cop stood back and allowed us to sort out our differences (he put his head and hands inside the truck to check the temperature obviously discovering what I did – it was not hot). I did thank her and told her that if he was in actual distress and danger I appreciated that she would get involved. However, I do not believe he was in anything except spoiled brat tantrum angst. She could tell I was not agreeing with her opinion that my dog was in danger and after I refused her offer of water and any other assistance she wandered away.

The cop came over to say ‘Well, she pretty much said what I’d have said.” I opened the back of the truck and he stood there looking at Boy, who was happy to see me but obviously not suffering heat stroke, and seemed speculative. He said I should not leave the dog like that again and take him for a walk. He mentioned that if the Canine Unit had come I’d get an earful because they lost two dogs last year due to heat stroke. Oh, let’s compare completely unrelated incidents shall we? Those dogs were left in a car with the windows up and AC supposedly on. They died in less than a half hour because the AC cut out. Gimme a break, you can’t compare a heavily tinted truck parked in the shade with all the windows all the way down to a sealed vehicle left in full sun. I’m sorry those dogs died but these are not comparable circumstances.

The cop left and I took Boy out for a walk, offered him some water which he didn’t drink, and headed back to the office.

Remember this blog entry? In January I called in an act of vandalism in progress and screaming threats of violence and the police said "Sorry, can't help you". It's a police monitored drug op (with raids and everything) and people violently acting out their drug induced anger and I cannot get the police do a drive by?? But a dog in a non-life threatening position gets a police officer there in no time? I pay taxes why exactly? So I can get harrassed and the drug dealers can get let off at every turn? The system is FUBAR.