Hot dogs, demonic cats and hungry snakes: Here are highlights from The Washington Post's Animal Watch column in 2000. The column, appearing in the Extras and Weeklies, provides a glimpse into the challenges faced by animal control officers across the region.
It was bad enough when a frightened doe came crashing through a first-floor apartment window in Laurel last January, followed seconds later by an amorous buck. But then the buck cast its eyes on the man of the house and started chasing him.
The man escaped through the broken window, with the buck close behind. Animal control finally arrived and bagged the doe. The buck, however, didn't stop here. Or there. It got away. And the man, he had to seek treatment at a hospital.
A family in Northwest Washington had a squirrel come down their chimney and take up residence in their Christmas tree. Whenever a woman approached the tree to try to shoo the squirrel away, it "screamed" at her, she said.
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Eventually, the family dog -- perhaps tired of all the screaming -- chased the squirrel back up the chimney.
Problem solved? Not quite. In short order, the squirrel was back in the tree.
Quipped the animal control officer: "He just wants his tree back."
The racket-making rodent was released into the wild, where it has no shortage of trees to choose from.
A woman brought a 4-year-old male cat into the D.C. Animal Shelter in early December. She said she was in her car outside a McDonald's in Landover when the cat jumped in, demanding a french fry.
A black Lab puppy that escaped its yard through a hole in the fence went on an exploration of its Montgomery County neighborhood. The tired little puppy was later found sound asleep in a lounge chair on someone else's deck.
The dog just wouldn't move. On the porch, in the July heat. A neighbor worried that the poor pooch might have suffered heat stroke and called animal control. An officer showed up to find the dog in the same stoic position. Because it was a statue.
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A District man called animal control to report a squirrel stuck in a vent in his house on Saratoga Avenue. The squirrel had been there about a week, the man said, with no food except for the Reese's Pieces the man had been feeding it through the vent.
Animal control removed the unwanted houseguest, which was sent to a wildlife rehabilitator to get over its newfound chocolate addiction and shed a few pounds.
As the item in our February Animal Watch column noted: "The Washington Humane Society does not recommend feeding squirrels candy."
Nor do dentists.
A crazed squirrel, possibly on a sugar high, was reported to be running around a home in Herndon. When a Fairfax County animal control officer arrived to confront the animal, it leapt off a window ledge and into an open baby grand piano.
The officer began tickling the ivories -- he played the song "All I Want" by Toad the Wet Sprocket -- until the squirrel jumped out of the piano and onto some curtains. Then -- and we're quoting from the official police report here -- the animal "boldly jumped onto the officer's head."
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Then it hopped onto the couch, where the officer pounced on it.
Nothing was harmed . . . except the curtains.
A Northwest Washington woman complained to animal control that there was a strange animal in her study. She couldn't see it but had heard it "chirping" for several days, she said, and had put out food and water so it wouldn't starve.
Animal control responded and found a smoke detector with a weak battery.
The officer bought the woman a new battery and even installed it.
A District animal control officer responded to a report of a clogged toilet in an apartment on Nannie Helen Burroughs Avenue in June. The toilet was clogged, all right -- with a Burmese python.
Speaking of snakes:
A Fairfax woman was attempting to feed her pet python when it lunged at her. The six-foot-long albino snake was still attached to the woman's face when animal control officers arrived, and it had to be pried loose.
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The python's owner sustained 40 to 50 puncture wounds, officials said, but declined treatment.
Come get my cat, the woman told animal control over the phone. He's not feeling well.
Indeed, the cat was coughing up hairballs when the officer arrived at the home in Northwest Washington but was otherwise fine.
The woman disagreed, saying the animal was possessed by a demon.
The cat was put up for adoption.
An unhappy Springfield resident was getting up early every morning only to find his newspaper missing. Other neighbors had the same complaint.
A tardy paperboy was their first thought. Or maybe a pilfering neighbor.
But no, the culprit turned out to be a large Lab-mix dog living nearby with an even larger stack of newspapers. The dog was jumping out of its yard, fetching every paper in sight and returning home with them.
Fairfax police, in reporting the incident, couldn't resist noting in their news release that the newspapers -- including copies of The Post -- were "recovered unread."
-- Marylou Tousignant
