Complex behaviors.
Surprise, surprise: large bureaucracies have internal communication gaps that you could steer a battleship through.
311 does not connect you to Animal Control. 311 apparently doesn’t even speak to Animal Control. Somewhere in their collective past 311 and Animal Control got into some kind of ridiculous argument when Animal Control said that 311’s wife had prepared a dry and tasteless pot roast for dinner, and they’ve been the bitterest of neighbors ever since.
Or something like that.
I called Animal Control directly ten minutes ago. They are sending a unit over to investigate.
It’s been a bit like purchasing an intricate electronic appliance and spending an hour trying to figure it out, only to discover randomly that a button on the back activates the artificial intelligence. Which you would have pressed earlier, except the button was labeled something otherwise unhelpful like “waffles.”
They don’t have my contact info–didn’t ask for it–so I won’t necessarily know the outcome unless I happen to be watching when the unit rolls in, which I don’t have time to do. There’s a good chance that if they find and confiscate the dogs that they may end up being sent to a kill shelter, and if their behavior is as wild as it has always seemed, they will likely end up destroyed. Still, such a fate is better than what they seem condemned to at the moment.
In a repugnant bit of cosmic leitmotif, shortly before I contacted Animal Control I took the dogs out for a brief walk and came across a small chihuahua/terrier mix running around loose on the sidewalk. I put Oracle and Cassie back inside and helped a woman who had pulled over, concerned about the dog being run over in traffic, to try and coax the animal to a safer location, at least.
The dog took off down the nearby alley, into a backyard, and up the stairs to its owner’s door.
The owner’s neighbors mentioned that she always lets the dog roam free in the neighborhood, unworried about the dog being hit by cars or snatched up by the sorts of bastards who feed small dogs to their abused gladiator pit bulls.
The owner, when confronted by the woman and I from the alley below, shrugged her shoulders, mumbled something in Spanish, and walked back inside.
People. I swear. People.
Creative Control 