It must be really hard to be an animal control officer. Many get into the field because they really want to work with animals, but day in, day out, they see unwanted pets sent to death row, and there’s nothing much they can do about it.
But Bryan Jones of Joliet, Illinois, tried to do something about one little fellow. And because of his actions, he’s no longer an animal control officer.
It started when he became fond of a Chihuahua who had a “Caution: I may bite” sign on his cage at the Joliet Township Animal Control shelter. The Chicago Sun-Times reports that a veterinary technician said the dog had snapped at someone and was aggressive.
Jones said the dog showed no signs of aggression when he played with him. He was scared the dog would be put to sleep, so he took it home. He said he wanted to make sure the Chi got along with his pets, and kept him during a week’s vacation with the intention of adopting him.
The thing is that he didn’t tell anyone at the shelter, and he didn’t give the dog back when the animal control director told him to hand him over to the shelter days later. The shelter director told Jones how much it would cost to adopt the dog, and how to go about it, and then called Township Supervisor Dan Vera to report what was going on.
When Vera learned the dog was not officially up for adoption, but was still being “processed,” he gave an ultimatum. “I said, ‘Sarah, I’m giving you a direct order right now as the township supervisor … that (dog) is the property of Joliet Township,’” Vera said. “‘You need to call [Jones] and tell him that dog needs to be back in our facility by 5 o’clock.’ ”
That was last week. The clock is still ticking, and as of last check Jones has not relinquished the dog. Somewhere along the way, he was terminated, so he figures he doesn’t have too much to lose by hanging onto his new pal. The township could force his hand and somehow take the dog from him, but I sure hope it doesn’t come to that.
Well, I don’t know about you, but any notions from my childhood of the “dog catcher” being a bad guy are now completely laid to rest. I think it took a lot of guts to do what Jones did. There may have been better ways to do it, but then again, he probably had a good idea of what could happen to this little dog if he’d gone the official route. What do you think of him and what he did? Applause? Jeers? Cheers?
Source: Chicago Sun-Times
