Today, I nearly broke into a patient’s house and stole his dog.
Okay, that sounds bad. Maybe I’d better start from the beginning.
The call came from the police, and read: “NEIGHBOURS CONCERNED FOR ELDERLY GENTLEMAN. HE HAS NOT BEEN SEEN FOR A FEW DAYS AND HIS DOG IS WHINING AT THE WINDOW.”
Calls like this are called “suspected collapse behind locked doors”. Half the time we go to them, we find a dead body on the other side of the locked door, the rest of the time we find a very angry person returning from a shopping trip to find their front door hanging off its hinges as the police search their house fruitlessly. This call, however, was neither. The elderly man had fallen and had been on the floor for an unspecified length of time. His house was in a revolting state; the crew had to step over a dead rat to get to him. The dog, a small, skinny creature of unspecified breed did not look as if it had been receiving the best of care. The owner admitted that he just couldn’t look after it any more — in fact, he couldn’t even look after himself. He begged them to find someone to look after it.
The crew were posed with a problem, because they needed to get the patient into hospital straight away, but didn’t want to leave the dog. In the end, they felt they had no option but to leave it to us to arrange something for the dog whilst they rushed the patient in. The police secured the house, leaving the dog alone inside. And then we began to play musical phone calls. We tried calling back the neighbour who had originally called, but the mobile was switched off. We rang the RSPCA, but they told us they could enter a property without permission and take away someone’s dog just like that. The Cinnamon Trust gave us the same story: they could arrange rehoming for the dog, but someone else would have to obtain the patient’s written permission and remove it from the property. We rang the hospital’s social work department, who weren’t able to do anything, and the local town hall. Each suggested we ring the next organisation on the list, until we were back to the RSPCA again. I’ve summed that up in a few sentences, but in fact it was nearly a whole day’s worth of on-hold music, being passed from pillar to post, and people quoting bits of the law at me, not forgetting the occasional interlude of having ambulances to dispatch.
It was getting towards the day and the thought of that little dog whining at the window was beginning to haunt me in a way that even the most horrific human calls fail to. I couldn’t sleep knowing it was slowing starving and dying a horrible, painful death in that rat infested house. Perhaps you can tell that I like animals more than I like people. The patient’s house was not very far from where I live, and I made the executive decision that if no one was going to rescue that poor little dog before the end of my shift, I was going round there to get it myself, even if it meant breaking and entering! The crew who originally attended were now back on station, off the road with a flat tyre, so I decided to give them a call and see if they had any suggestions. Fortunately, it seemed that burglary was not going to be necessary after all, because they provided me with an alternative number for the patient’s neighbour. I rang her and asked her if she was aware of the situation with the dog. She told me yes, and that she had been on to various organisations all day, meeting much the same obstacles that I had. Eventually, she had managed to arrange something, and someone had just been to collect the dog.
I like to think that it went happily to a new home, but even if it did have to be put down, at least it will have had a quick and painless death, unlike the one I was imagining. Thank god for that neighbour’s persistence, and thank god she noticed that there was a problem with her neighbour in the first place. All too often, people turn a blind eye to this. It’s nice to know there are still some good, kind people in the road. It’s also a relief that I am not going to have to resort to hustling canines in the dead of the night after all.
February 17th, 2007 at 10:39 pm
Whilst on the one hand I apprecite that organisations can’t jsut break into people’s houses and steal their dogs, but where’s the common sense? This wasn’t your average situation.
It must be so frustrating being passed from pillar to post and trying to find someone to assume responsibility for a situation that really is their responsibility and really not yours! Though I’m sure this is a problem you encounter with services other than those invovled in canine rescue (or canine-non-rescue in this case!)
February 17th, 2007 at 10:41 pm
This makes me feel much less horrible about myself as a humane person. There is a commercial running on TV here in the states that shows dogs in a shelter looking out of their cages. The voice over is in first person (dog?) “I am a good dog. I know how to sit and stay. What I don’t know is how I ended up here.” I can’t even watch it. Breaks my heart, makes me want to go down to the SPCA with a truck and become one of those crazy old women with 100 dogs in her house.
February 17th, 2007 at 11:03 pm
So you don’t have Animal Control officers in London? In my US city (most US cities?), we have officers empowered to take possession of neglected/abused animals, with or without the owner’s permission, and take them to a shelter. (The owner can challenge the seizure.) They even do turtles.
February 18th, 2007 at 12:55 am
I generally like animals more than people too. Couldn’t do this job if it was a veterinary ambulance I worked on.
My mind is however rattling around the various abuses of a turtle and I can’t help smiling. I’m not sure if the image of using one as a door stop is the best mental picture or that of a turtle curling stone.
February 18th, 2007 at 11:40 am
I wonder if it’s a case of ‘liking animals more than humans’ or if it’s more about the need to help something/someone that can’t help them selves? Having got the patient the care they needed, next on the list is the dog, and as it can’t feed it’ self, phone for help or even open the front door and leg it, it was a job for Nee Naw!
I went on a job the other week where the district nurse on scene had two beautiful sheep dogs with her, mother and daughter aged 14 and10years, her first patient had died during the night and with no family to take care of the dogs she had arranged for the RSPA to take them, but they couldn’t collect them ‘till late afternoon. So they were spending the day in the back of her car, doing the ‘rounds’ I do hope they managed to find them a home together, I imagine their ages would make them difficult to re-house.
As a nation I suspect we are a soft touch for a wet nose and a waging tail, I bet the ‘Guide Dogs for the Blind’ find it easier to fund raise than the RNIB (Royal National Institute of the Blind.)
February 18th, 2007 at 2:41 pm
This, while not strictly on the same lines, reminds me of a call I had to make a few years ago; It was 2am and a police car was just cruising around waiting for the next job. As they turned into a main road, they saw a black mass lying in the middle of the road. They stopped, got out to investigate only to find a beautiful cat that had been hit by a car. It according to them, died in their arms. As if taking that radio transmission was not heart-breaking enough, they advised it had a collar on it with a number, and could I call it so they could return their much-loved pet for final goodbyes. The lady I spoke to, once I’d identified who I was and what I was calling in relation to, burst into tears. It took all my strength not to join her (I did have a little sob when I hung up). The officers took the cat to her and went on their way.
Now I can deal with multiple pile ups on a motorway, stabbings, shootings and all sorts and not feel the slightest bit of emotion. This however, broke my heart and just remembering this has actually got a tear rolling down my cheek.
Emergency Service personnel invariably love animals more than humans. Purely because animals love and trust humans. If only the same love could be said for the rest of the human race. Instead we’re content with killing each other over a half pint of lager and a woman.
*sigh*
Good on you Mark. I very much doubt even if you HAD broken in to retrieve the dog the police would have done anything but pat you on the back.
February 18th, 2007 at 3:29 pm
I know you like animals; I had the following conversation with police control a few months ago.
Me, I want to report an injured cow in the carriage way, on the B1234 between Uphill and Downdale
Police call taker, ‘Oh nooooo, is it a Friesian? How awful!!!
Me, No it’s not a Friesian, It’s like a Friesian, only it’s brown and white, not black and white
Police operator. ‘Well it must be a Hereford then, I get some over straight away’
True to her word, patrol car came bowling along, as well as a vet and a selection of farmers the last I saw of the cow it on a drip and getting the finest possible care!
It must have been ‘bovine intervention’ that I got through to the counties police cow expert!
February 18th, 2007 at 9:58 pm
God, I have to say I like animals more than people too, especially dogs, and I would’ve done exactly the same thing. Poor creature. It’s a dog’s sheer incomprehension that hurts too… just thinking of that poor animal not knowing where its owner had gone, why there was no food, no water, why it couldn’t get out… [sob]
I’m still haunted by a DogsTrust ad of some time ago, with an old dog sitting in the rain and voicing over that “Nobody wants you when you get old”, and by that Metro story about the couple in the suicide pact, who were discovered locked in with their skeletal dog after about a month. Part of me can’t believe that they were so cruel as to commit suicide without finding a new home for their poor dog!
February 19th, 2007 at 1:03 pm
I had a job yesterday where I had to go into this guy’s house to get him up/washed/dressed (I’m a Hospice at Home HCA) where he and his wife both live in a small, cramped council house. His wife had learning difficulties, and it was obvious to me that they couldn’t look after themselves, let alone the 3 cats they had. The house was filthy and smelt very, very strongly of urine, almost certainly the cats’. They were all really thin and probably got fed once a week if they were lucky. I know I was there to look after my patient, but I wanted to scoop the cats up and take them home myself.
February 19th, 2007 at 2:58 pm
Great to hear the little dog ended up okay.
(But honestly, what’s the world coming to? I’m one of those wouldn’t-hurt-fly types of people, and I’m sitting here, snickering madly at the idea of turtle curling stones.)
February 20th, 2007 at 6:12 am
I used to be a Fire Despatcher in Australia, and for a few years I knew the RSPCA’s phone number off by heart. I called them most shifts to help organise care or rescue of animals, and usual was handballed from one department to another, each saying it wasn’t there responsibility. Now as a paramedic, I find I often get more upset when things happen to animals rather than people. Maybe its because the animals are so reliant on us to be looked after.
February 21st, 2007 at 7:11 pm
I work as a social worker in Scotland, Mark, and that sounds very familiar. Often if I’m arranging for someone to go into hospital I’ll be left with two hamsters, a budgie, on one occasion an iguana and usually a cat and a dog to rehome. And it’s really not as simple as you’d expect
We have a good charity who provide foster carers for pets but there really arent’ enough of them and it’s not unknown for us to end up taking people’s pets in ourselves!
February 24th, 2007 at 9:32 pm
I don’t usually cry reading blogs, but boy-o!
I don’t know what mad me sadder, the fact the man had no family that cared or that he was so worried about his little friend.
Bravo for making sure he was at least [humanely] taken care of.
Hugs