Animal Control

No, not our pets, the wild ones outside.

There was an obviously sick little skunk in wandering around our yard this morning. He was outside the pool yard fence, but as I shooed the dogs inside he slipped through the wrought iron fence into the yard. I urged the dogs inside ("RUUUUN!), then looked back out and the poor thing had fallen into the pool. I closed the door on the frantically barking dogs, grabbed a pool pole and fished him out. He stuck around in the pool yard, lethargic, acting like he felt horrible. I thought he might be recovering from his dip, but he didn't actually recover. He just stayed around, lying in one place, out in the open. He didn't care if I got fairly close (6 feet or so) to him. I came inside and checked the Innerwebs, and yeah, what he was doing was close to a textbook example of the paralytic stage of rabies.

He could move just fine for short bursts, but mostly he sat still, head down, out in the open. And scratched a lot, poor thing, like he had fleas or mites. He looked like he was in serious misery. If he were a pet, I'd have been racing him to the vet, he looked so sick. I called Animal Control.

I'm working on income tax this morning, but I looked out into the back yard every few minutes, keeping track of where he was, waiting for Animal Control. He was lying by the fence not five minutes before the guy got here but, of course, when the guy arrived, he was gone. The AC guy and I searched for him, and I told him the whole story.

He said, "He was in the pool? You should have just let him drown."

Really…WTF? I know you can't be in Animal Control and be sentimental about animals, and you'd have to be careful not to be too empathetic (or at all). But still. And, for the record—no, I can't stand there and watch an animal drown. Seriously? 

Hell of a day so far.