“Outside of a dog, a book is a man’s best friend. Inside of a dog, it’s too dark to read.” 

— Groucho Marx, comedian

On a late run, early in my career, I brought home a dog. The run wasn’t all that eventful — some lady who wasn’t supposed to have the dog in the first place needed to find him a home. More eventful was my wife’s heated reaction when a yelping little roommate-to-be woke her up in the middle of the night. I may or may not have mentioned anything to her about bringing him home. Fortunately, she’s since fallen in love with the little guy — who, as a 75-pound, strong-as-an-ox pitsky, isn’t so little anymore.

But perhaps the most eventful, and funniest, dog-involved police run I’ve taken was admittedly more kid-centric than dog-focused. I’d gotten an email about an 11-year-old and her 4-year-old brother, both missing from some southside residence and possibly driving their mom’s black SUV. Not long after reading it, I get dispatched to check the welfare of a couple kids in an SUV matching that description.

I get on scene, walk over to the suspect vehicle, and sure enough — young girl in the driver’s seat, younger boy in the backseat. Dead match. Our driver acted like she didn’t care if we were there or not. Her passenger looked amped — and he was. Flanking him in the backseat were two big dogs: a thirsty-looking short-haired black-and-white pit and an even thirstier-looking, shaggy-haired golden. It’s a hot day, so I ask a nearby concerned Wendy’s employee if she’ll get the heavily panting pooches some water. “Happy to. I’ll be right back,” she says.

I didn’t expect so many of the vulnerable lives I’d impact to be those of dogs.

I speak with our driver. “Hi there.”

She just gives me a “leave me the hell alone” look.

“What’s your name?” 

She’s willing to give her name, albeit reluctantly. I give her mine in return.

“How’d you get to Wendy’s? You guys out for a drive or what?”

For whatever reason, that set of questions got her going. She starts talking, but from a very defensive angle.

“Well, we weren’t trying to do anything wrong. I know how to drive. My dad taught me. I can drive. We’re going to my grandma’s. My other grandma’s.”

“OK. Where’s Grandma live?”

She gave an address at least an hour and a half’s drive west of that Wendy’s.

“Wow,” I say in response. “Why are you guys going to Grandma’s?”

“We haven’t seen her in a long time, and she told us to come over.”

“I see. Why didn’t your dad just drive you?”

“He’s in jail. You locked him up.”

“Well, I personally didn’t…” I stop, realizing getting into that wasn’t exactly the most pressing issue right then and there.

“Where’s your mom?” I ask.

“She’s at work.”

“So why didn’t you just wait for her to get off work and drive you to Grandma’s?”

“She never lets us go over there.”

“Oh, OK. So you figured at age 11… You are 11, right?”

“Yes.”

“So at age 11, you were just going to drive the nearly two hours to Grandma’s?”

“Well, we got gas and some snacks and dropped my little sister off at my grandma’s and…”

“Wait, wait. What? You had your little sister with you too?”

Apparently, Mom didn’t know she was missing.

“Yeah, and…”

“Ho-hold on. So you already went to Grandma’s?”

“That’s my other grandma.”

“Ooohhhh. So your little sister is at your other grandma’s? That’s where you dropped her off?”

“Yeah, and we got gas.”

“From a gas station?”

“Duh.”

“You knew how to do that?”

“I’ve seen my mom do it like a thousand and hundred times.”

“Gotcha.”

“How’d you pay for it?”

“With a credit card.”

“Whose credit card?” We’d later find out it was Mom’s, found inside Mom’s purse, which the girl had also taken along on this trip. At least she planned ahead.

All of a sudden, one of the most hilarious moments of my young police career happens. I’m in the middle of questioning this little girl when her 4-year-old brother, dogs on either side, smashed cans of Surge all over the floorboards, stains splattered across his little red shirt, belly hanging out, stands up on the backseat cushion and sticks half his body out the back window. I look over at him and think, “I didn’t know they still made Surge.” He had clearly been the consumer of those drinks and looked like a miniature Hulk Hogan, proudly standing on the corner ropes hyping the crowd before some acrobatic body slam. “We stole mom’s car!” he belts out as loud as he can. I could barely contain myself. Laughter came erupting from within me. I bit my quivering lip as hard as I could. The big sister then leans over to him with a, “Shhhhhhh. You idiot!” as if they’d kept this a secret up to that point. I had to walk away and laugh. I tap my beat partner in. “You got this. I’ll talk to the detective.”

I eventually get a hold of Mom, and she hurries to the scene. She seems like a decent parent and has a thousand questions, but we follow protocol and phone the Department of Child Services regardless. She tells me her daughter is an emotionless, remorseless wild child who’s dead inside. I could see that.

In another investigation not long after, the human subject was most definitely dead inside … and out. His dog, however, seemed to be doing just fine.

The run came out as a welfare check. Neighbors say they can usually hear the guy next door because he “has Tourette’s or something where he screams while he’s taking a shit.” I think they meant hemorrhoids. At any rate, the guy was dead, and judging by the smell and decomposition and soiled carpet, he had been for some time. His dog, on the other hand, was not — far from it, in fact. I’d found some unidentified pills on scene, making this death perhaps something other than natural, so homicide responded. Naturally, the conversation transitioned to the dog on scene, how he’d stayed alive and how other dogs in similar situations have lived.

The homicide detective began talking about a recent run he’d been called out to where, despite the dead owner, that dog too had remained very much alive. Though cuddly and sweet they may be, dogs are still animals of a different breed. And that breed has a craving for meat and a high drive to stay alive. This became ever more apparent in the detective’s story. He said the situation wasn’t tough to figure out. It was clearly death by natural causes. But he said the body didn’t look natural at all, or looked very natural, depending on what you mean by natural. The man was legless from the knees down, aside from the bones anyway. The decedent had a dog. It was a caretaking dog there to lend this guy companionship, affection and a helping hand, er paw, for balance, guidance and calm. Witnesses said the dog had been a great aide to the man, extremely loving
and loyal.

The guy had been dead a few weeks, and apparently the dog got desperate for food. The man was not previously missing any limbs. With no better meal than the one decomposing in his living room, that hungry, lonely pooch made do on a little toe tartare, some gastrocnemius gastronomy, a plantaris-based diet. American author Thom Jones said, “Dogs have a way of finding the people who need them.” I guess some dogs also have a way of finding people who feed them. He did what he had to do to stay alive, and he’s probably happily licking some adoptive owner’s face right now. The irony is that since the dog was a caretaking dog, I guess in a way his owner finally returned the favor. Circle of life.

After hearing that story, I’m fully convinced that if I die alone indoors with my dog, Wiley, he, with his insatiable appetite, will most definitely eat my legs off. I tell my wife that, and she says, “No, he’ll eat your whole body.”

Half a year after Wiley joined our household, I took part in this department PR video montage themed “Why We Serve.” In the video, officers appear holding a whiteboard. Written across it is a short line about why that person became a cop. I tried to stay away from the ultra-cheesy “To protect those in need” or “To serve my community” lines I was certain others would use, but I also didn’t want to put “For a paycheck.” I came up with “To positively, directly impact vulnerable lives,” which is just a flashier version of the first two, but how much can you really say in one line? I felt like I needed an entire book …. Still, I meant it. I just didn’t expect so many of the vulnerable lives I’d impact to be those of dogs.