2 of the 7 people who have read this blog have emailed me
complaining about no new updates since the last one. This is because nothing has happened worth
talking about. Except maybe a few little things, which when I added them up
made it clear to me why I had been feeling a little low lately. I decided I
would write down these things and see if it helps.
I run into mental illness so often in my line of work now
that I wonder how many times I ran into it in my past life and didn’t see it
for what it is. I know now I have had friends and family who fit into this
category, and that I probably do, and I expect almost everyone else I know also
has it as part of their life too. So
there.
Thor the totally awesome pitbull was back in the shelter this
week. I have run across him regularly during some of my beach patrols these
last three or four months, he has been living with Jesus Joe, a local homeless
guy living in a Ford Ranger with a mismatched plastic camper shell, taking
great care of this incredible beast who loves everyone he meets. Thor used to live with Phil, who used to live
under the bridge between the beach and the town; I last saw Phil and Thor
together last Fall when the Sheriffs asked me to help them while they were
clearing out a homeless encampment by the railroad tracks, and they thought
Phil was dead inside his tent and were afraid Thor wouldn’t let them do their
job. (Phil had owned Thor for years before I ever started my job, there is
another post on this blog about that.) Phil was ok though, just sleeping it
off, and Thor couldn’t have been happier to see me. So earlier this year when I
saw Thor tied to the bumper of a truck in a parking lot, I was surprised that
Phil wasn’t there but Jesus Joe was.
Jesus Joe told me Phil had died in a hospice late last year,
and that Thor was by his side to the end. And Jesus Joe took it upon himself to
care for Thor, which he has been doing a bang up job of as far as I can tell,
and it’s my job to tell. Jesus Joe told me he had been trying to help Phil quit
drinking but it wasn’t taking. He
himself had been sober for a decade and had no reason to go back to the bottle,
he was proud of his nickname earned by trying to guide other folks in his
circle toward a better way of living. So when I checked out the previous
night’s activities and saw Thor had been impounded by my rookie at 1 a.m.
earlier this week and Jesus Joe had been arrested for a DUI, I was bummed. Thor
was released to some other dude who is a friend of Jesus Joe the next morning,
and Jesus Joe was released that day too.
I will look for him this week and see if I can give Thor a bag of dog
food and some more treats.
Speaking of my rookie, on his first week set free on his own
2 months ago he ran across a homeless kid he knew to be on parole, with his dog
off leash on one of our hiking trails while carrying a rifle. He sat the kid
down, took his rifle and called the cops. The cops arrested the guy, impounded
his house (a Ford Ranger with a mismatched home-made plywood camper shell,
packed with bottles of urine) and we impounded the dog, Stuffy. The kid is in
his early 20s, with a long history of burglary, petty theft, etc. and is a
poorly medicated schizophrenic. His
family refuses to have anything to do with the him, or even Stuffy, which is a Jack
Russel terrier-mix the kid smuggled in from Mexico and is, startlingly, totally
friendly to everyone. The kid went for a
parole violation, possession of a firearm, 60 days minimum. Typically, we will
keep an owned dog for 10 days before we offer it up for adoption. Since the kid
is somewhat of a local, and since we knew he would eventually be back on our
streets, for whatever misguided reason our shelter decided to return the dog to
him this Tuesday, for nominal fees. Anyway, the kid had some kind of meltdown
Wednesday, and was arrested at Walmart for trying to steal something, and
Stuffy is, again, back with us. This time I am hoping he will be adopted out to
a family with a house, not a Ford Ranger, who can take care of him.
Both Jesus Joe’s and The Kid’s Ford Rangers were surprisingly
clean, albeit small places for a person to live in with a dog. When I went into
Mable’s house last month I kicked myself for not taking the advice of the sheriff's deputies who accompanied me, and strap on a respirator. The build-up of rotting garbage,
feces and urine in the unventilated, $1 million home made breathing nearly
impossible. The Meals on Wheels guy had called it in this time when Mable
refused to answer her door for the third day in a row, and the cops were
surprised and pleased to find she was not DOA in a bathroom but had in fact
checked herself into a hospital three days ago. She had made no provisions for
her 2 miniature Yorkies, who were left for three days with absolutely no food
or water in a beautiful trophy home swarming with insects and packed waist-deep
with trash.
Mable is only 76, yet her state of dementia is severe. My agency has dealt with her before, as have
social services, adult protective services, code enforcement, the county
hoarding task force, her family and her neighbors. Previously, we leveraged her to have her
house cleaned up before we would return the dogs. This time, I decided I would
let a judge decide if Mable should get her dogs back. She forgot to attend the
hearing, and the dogs officially became the property of my agency a month ago. Mable still refuses to allow anyone into her
home to check on its condition, and until it falls down or catches on fire
there is little any public agency can do.
She continues to drive to the shelter (on a revoked driver’s license, in
a new BMW SUV) to ask when she can get her dogs back; she still insists she is
fine in her house and rejects every attempt to ease her into an assisted living
facility. The dogs were recently adopted
out together to a family with kids who love the dogs as much as the dogs love
them. Mable is still breaking the hearts
of her family members, her social workers, emergency service workers and me.
