Ok so let's talk common courtesy today.... When you come home from work, 99% of the time the work stays AT WORK. Yes there are certain jobs that come home with you, but for the majority, your work stays at work. You don't have people calling you all hours of the night on basic work things (like I said the majority of jobs don't yes there are exceptions).
So lets lay out a scenario... You have seen that a dog is being abused, not feed, etc for the past week or longer. So on Friday, at 6 pm you decide to call this in. You have known for well over a week about the situation that this dog is being mistreated but you wait until business hours are passed and people are going home for the weekend. When you could have called 2 or 3 days earlier and had this taken care of during normal business hours. And it isn't just a show-up and take the dog. There is lots of paperwork, photos, and follow-ups that have to be done in a certain time frame. So now you have made Animal control aware and they spend their entire weekend working on this because you waited. Keeping in mind they do not get paid overtime and this is on their own time.
Or even better you call and say well I will just tie the dog to your porch then.. Really?? Does your boss say well I will just bring your computer to your house from work so you can do this? I mean come on people. Everyone has a home life.
Yes, there is an emergency line. When should that be used? Dog hit by a car.. Yup, you bet that is a big emergency. Dog on the loose after hours. Nope call your local police department. They will call if need be. They can not even pick up a dog without permission. Bet you didn't realize that did ya... Animal control has contracts with every town. They do not pick up a dog unless they are authorized. You see they have laws that they must follow just like any other job. All jobs have set rules that should not be broken.
Now I am going to tell you this. All of us that work at animal control (and some who no longer do including myself) receive phone calls or messages all the time concerning an animal. And the sad fact is we all love what we do and it is hard to not respond even though we do not get paid and it is our time off.
Yes Animal control is here for the animals, but that is not their only job. They have a home and family to care for as well. To top it off there are 2.... Yes 2 employees that respond to calls that work down there. They respond to all of Montgomery County... 2 people to cover all of this.
So the next time you think about calling the call phone or a personal cell phone ask yourself if this is truly an emergency. If so, by all means, call on of us so we can get help, if not call your local police department or if it can wait call and leave a voicmail at animal control.
RANT OVER.....
