Being an animal control officer was never a goal of mine. I just needed a job and civil service has always been desirable. It IS service to others, and it’s hard to fire someone for not conforming. I did not suspect the five years there would be a key experience, partly because of going door-to-door all over Portland and Multnomah County and partly because of the research and brain-storming that I shared there.
The county was trying to whittle down its health department — always a target if there’s not an epidemic — and wanted to retire their public veterinarian, Dr. Watts. But they didn’t want to just dismiss him — had no reason. Burgwin, our innovative boss, saw that he could be a major advantage and we added Watts to the shelter staff. We began to have a definite scientific aspect.
We got more than we bargained for since he was a conservative Christian. Wildly emotional citizens hurt and angered by our restrictions on their pets were passionately righteous in their attacks on us. The first time one of these jumped Dr. Watts in his white doctor’s coat, the Doc drew himself up and launched into scripture. “It is all very well for you to sit on the seat of scorn and criticize us,” he sad. “Where were you when thus and thus and so and so?” He did not neglect the moral aspect of the work.
Quite different was what I learned from being a sheriff’s deputy as we were when I was hired. Our trucks were on the sheriff’s radio so that we knew what they faced and they kept tabs on us. In those days social conformity was more usual, but angry people can be dangerous.
As attention shifted to drugs, commissioners decided our work was not vital and we were moved to Environmental Services. The good side was that we got our own radio frequency and kept our own transmission records. Environmental workers were protocol people so I was authorized to develop a handbook for animal control officers and no one interfered with what I put in it.
Rabies was our great prompter when it came to zoonoses. It is 100% fatal, not just carried by wild animals but by dogs in our homes. The vaccine against it is 100% effective, so to make sure people got their dogs vaccinated, it was connected to dog licenses and recorded at the shelter. Proof that a dog had been immunized meant that it did not have to be killed to have its brain analyzed for the virus. Intervention could be effective in humans if begun right away, but it was painful and expensive. We officers had rabies vaccinations, but no one knew whether they worked in humans.
Part of the research for my fattening textbook was about epidemics and pandemics. Portland is a port city, which makes it vulnerable to ships, one of the most prolific vectors for disease-carrying vermin like rats. Maybe you’ve seen the discs on anchoring hawsers that are meant to prevent rats from running down the ropes. They must jump in the water and swim ashore.
Another predictor was population density. The more rats, the more diseases in their fleas. The more loose dogs, the more likely to be unvaccinated rabies carriers. In spite of constantly euthanizing unwanted dogs, there were always more, more, more because they are gifted interstitial survivors, grouping and roaming and sliding in and out of households. We began to talk about epidemics among dogs and Dr. Watts agreed that new viruses were likely to appear.
It did. The name of it was “parvovirus.” By now it is a scourge much like distemper, contagious and widespread. Here are descriptions from the internet:
“Parvovirus CPV2 is a relatively new disease that appeared in the late 1970s. It was first recognized in 1978 and spread worldwide in one to two years. The virus is very similar to feline panleukopenia (also a parvovirus); they are 98% identical, differing only in two amino acids in the viral capsid protein VP2.”
“Canine parvovirus is a contagious virus mainly affecting dogs. CPV is highly contagious and is spread from dog to dog by direct or indirect contact with their feces. Vaccines can prevent this infection, but mortality can reach 91% in untreated cases. Treatment often involves veterinary hospitalization.” Wikipedia
Scientific name: Canine parvovirus 2
Virus: Canine parvovirus
Rank: Species
“Protoparvovirus is the name of a genus of viruses in the Parvovirinae subfamily of the virus family Parvoviridae. Vertebrates serve as natural hosts. There are currently eleven species in the genus including the type species Rodent protoparvovirus 1 for which the exemplar virus is minute virus of mice (MVM). This genus also includes canine parvovirus (CPV), which causes gastrointestinal tract damage in puppies that is about 80% fatal, and porcine parvovirus (PPV), which is a major cause of fetal death and infertility in pigs. The genus divides phylogenetically into two branches, one that contains many founder members of the family, such as MVM, CPV and PPV, which have been studied in considerable detail, and a second branch occupied exclusively by predicted viruses whose coding sequences were identified recently in the wild using virus discovery approaches, but whose biology remains minimally explored. This second branch currently contains two species whose members infect humans, called Primate protoparvovirus 1 and Primate protoparvovirus 3.” (Wiki)
In Middle Eastern countries and other places that are undeveloped, populations of pariah dogs and scavenger pigs belong to no one and are hot beds for disease because in such places they eat garbage and carrion, even dead people. I have not heard of pigs carrying rabies, but the dogs often do. Certainly, those countries have taboos on eating pigs, with good reason.
Reservation dogs are often prey to distemper and parvo deaths, esp. among puppies, and they don’t always get rabies shots. Technically they are not pariah dogs but simply a “tribe” or community that is interwoven with the people. I have not heard of rabies outbreaks or individual examples though they exist in Mexico.
The point is that viruses and epidemic explosions of them exist everywhere. To keep from being vulnerable, we must always be alert. We are animals with coded genomes that we share with the rest of life. It's a responsibility.
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