Crime & Safety

Animal Control Officers on the Job

Animal control officers see a side of Fairfax County hidden to most.

Animal control officer Daniel Cook cradles a baby opossum and places it inside a cardboard box atop a warmed blanket, along with its nine siblings.

The night before, witnesses say the opossums’ mother was attacked and killed by a bulldog-mix named Jada. The family had been living near a tree in front of the dog’s Clifton home when mammal met marsupial to a bloody end.

“She’s not playing opossum now,” Cook said as he removed the mother opossum’s approximately 8-pound body and placed her in the back of his animal control truck Wednesday afternoon. 

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The litter was taken to the Fairfax County Animal Shelter in Fairfax, where Cook hopes that a wildlife rehabilitation group will take them. The mother opossum was tested for rabies. Fortunately, results came back negative Thursday. Had they come back positive, Jada would’ve been quarantined for 180 days.  

It’s all in a day’s work for Cook, who has been an animal control officer for 10 years. He has a degree in wildlife management and environmental technologies. Before joining the force, he served in the Navy and later was a wildlife rehabilitator.

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“You get all kinds of cases,” Cook said.

There are 22 fully-sworn animal control officers in Fairfax County covering 299 square miles. Only a handful of animal control agencies throughout the state have are fully-sworn officers, a point that is to their advantage, said Andy Sanderson, who is another animal control officer in Fairfax.

“It helps expedite the resolution of the case,” Sanderson said. “We don’t have to wait for a law enforcement officer to get to a scene because we have the right to issue tickets.” 

In recognition of the work that they do, last week was named Animal Control Officer Appreciation Week by the National Animal Control Association. Fairfax officers have responded to 2,644 animal-related incidents so far this year.

About 80 percent of their call volume is wildlife related, the other 20 percent domestic, Sanderson said. Officers have encountered everything from monkeys to iguanas, alligators to snakes.

How do they deal with the sometimes poisonous creatures? “Carefully,” Sanderson said.

In their trucks, animal control officers carry traps that do not physically harm the animal as well as chemicals to sedate aggressive animals.

Even with the precautions officers take, it’s understood that risk is part of the job.

“I don’t think any animal control officer can go through their career without being bitten by something,” Cook said. He added that he has been bitten by a dog, scratched by a cat, and pecked by a parrot, among other injuries.

Cook’s shift typically begins at 1 p.m. and ends around midnight. In that time, he can see anywhere from two to a dozen cases, depending on the day and the weather (nicer weather usually results in an uptick in calls as animals make their way in the open).  

Routine calls include stray dogs and bats that make their way into residences. The latter cases are more frequent then one may expect.

“They typically stay near the front door lights, where they find bugs,” Cook said. “Usually, they’ll fly into the home as the owner opens the door and they sneak in.”

By far, Cook said the toughest days are when he encounters animal hoarding cases.

“It’s hard to know what triggers someone to do something like that,” Cook said. “They think that they are helping the animals from death, but they don’t see that they are hurting them.”

Economic troubles for pet owners can also lead to neglect.

“Horses, for example, are expensive to maintain between the hay and everything else,” Cook said. “People can’t keep up with their care and the animal suffers.”

“It does retch your heart to see an animal that has been abused,” Cook said. “But you can’t let your personal reactions get in the way of what you have to do.”


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