Dogcatcher’s Day: Snarls, Wagging Tails and Heartache

The first emergency call of the day came in even before animal control officer Marcial Evangelista reported for work.

Before his shift was up, Evangelista, 36, would be attacked by snarling dogs, swarmed by fleas, chewed out by a man who had not renewed his guard dog licenses and taunted by passersby as he chased strays down streets.

Evangelista, one of the Los Angeles Department of Animal Regulation’s 48 uniformed officers, would also snare six dogs before lunchtime and cart them to the South-Central animal shelter.

“Every day, it’s something different,” he said, slapping a copy of the job order on the dash of his yellow animal regulation truck as he drove out of the shelter parking lot at 8 a.m. “If people took care of their animals, there wouldn’t be a need for animal regulation--but we’ll never go out of business.”

Evangelista arrived at his first call: A recovery facility for alcoholic women on 52nd Street, where a sick black-and-brown dog had taken up residence under the two-story home.

“There’s the little fellow right there,” said a woman standing on the front porch as she pointed out the dog, which was sleeping on the sidewalk. “Good luck. He’s awful smart.”

Another woman emerged from the house, saying: “I’ve got to watch this.”

No sooner had Evangelista grabbed his “buddy”--a metal pole with rubber handgrips and a loop of rope dangling from one end--than the dog rose from its slumbers and started trotting down the street.

The women tried not to laugh as Evangelista ran close behind, extending the pole with one hand and snapping his fingers with the other.

“This is a smart dog,” he agreed, stopping to catch his breath. Conceding Round 1, Evangelista set out a screen trap baited with a can of Purina chicken dinner and promised to return.

Back in the truck, the radio crackled. “Uh-oh. Priority call. Vicious dog reported at large,” said Evangelista, an animal control officer for 3 1/2 years who earns about $28,000 a year. “If the owner isn’t home I’ll have a good time trying to catch it.”

The dog in question turned out to be a small brown mutt that strolled up with tail wagging when Evangelista bent down and cooed: “Come on over here, baby.

“Well, that’s one problem solved,” he said, lifting the animal into one of six cages built into the side of his truck.

At the next call, Evangelista tried to collect overdue license fees from the owner of an equipment rental company. He quickly learned that other animal control officers recently had removed three of the man’s dogs because there were more on the property than the law allows.

“I’ve got a bone to pick with you guys! I need my dogs--this is a high-crime area!” the owner said, wagging a finger in Evangelista’s face. Evangelista smiled politely and reminded the man that he needed to renew licenses for his two guard dogs.

“Well, I got what I wanted,” Evangelista said, collecting a $100 check for the licenses and heading off to nab another sick dog reported living beneath a house.

A few minutes later, Evangelista was on his knees with a flashlight peering into a crawl space on the backside of a wood-frame house on 50th Street.

“Oh, my goodness!” he yelled, falling back and slapping at a blizzard of fleas that had swarmed out of the hole and onto his face and neck. He reached back in and pulled out a small brown dog encrusted with the tiny pests.

The next call was a heartbreaker. After playing with neighborhood children all morning, a small brown dog had made the mistake of falling asleep beneath a van.

“It got run over. It can’t walk. Sad. Hit-and-run, too,” said Raymond Hanks, stepping out of the garage of a nearby furniture repair company. “He fell asleep under the van, and ‘Boom!’ ”

Evangelista shook his head sadly, cradled the bleeding animal in his arms and placed it in the truck, saying, “Well, we’ll have someone look at it.”

By 1 p.m., Evangelista’s truck was full of small brown dogs and he returned to the shelter. There, the injured dog was killed after a veterinarian determined that it could not be saved.

The animal control officer’s lot is a daily round of picking up stray dogs and cats, enforcing leash laws, answering animal-related emergency calls, and investigating cruelty and abandonment complaints.

But it has its satisfactions. Later this same day, someone adopted a small white dog that Evangelista had impounded.

The dog had come to the shelter in bad shape, suffering from a large chemical burn over which someone had smeared crankcase oil.

Jeanne Marie, a member of the Amanda Foundation animal adoption group, tried not to cry as she inspected the dog that shelter officials had been treating with special baths and antibiotics.

Calling softly through the wire mesh of a cage in the shelter’s hospital room, Marie told the dog: “You had a rough beginning in this world, little lady, but you’re going to have a happy ending.”