Dedicated to Duchess, Dozer, Samson, Nana, Chloe and all the other lovable landfill dogs who helped rescue me from a lifelong dog phobia.
By Adam Jochelson, P. E., MOLO
I was never a dog person. Frankly, any of them higher than my knee made me a bit nervous, even as an adult. Mind you, not without cause—an early traumatic experience with the family dog was at the root of my canine phobia. That’s why my first dog rescue at the landfill was a transformative moment in my life, and followed an unlikely course of events that culminated with a heart-racing rescue effort on a frozen November morning.
That’s when I saved Duchess—not her name at the time, but one the rescue group later bestowed upon the beautiful Dutch Shepherd someone had abandoned near the landfill the previous month. As terrible as it sounds, dogs like this show up at landfills all the time. Because they’re usually quite remote and not typically attended overnight, landfills are popular spots for dog owners who no longer wish to care for their companions. And if you choose to work at one, you will at some point have to decide what you want to do about them.
Suddenly Homeless
Seeing so many abandoned pets at your landfill might make you question the compassion of the human spirit, especially when you see that most of them are dropped off because they’re old or sick or both. The worst is when someone dumps one because she’s pregnant. When that happens, you’ll soon have a litter of puppies on your hands. And once you’ve developed a reputation for rescuing animals, your coworkers will definitely call you whenever they see puppies. After Duchess and a couple of other rescues of gentle housedogs forsaken by their owners, I found litters of eight and five puppies within six months of each other. This being before the meteoric rise of social media, I set up a Web site of my own (www.adampuppies.org) to help spread the word. This turned out to be a good idea, as I was able to get every one of them adopted into good homes.
Now, diving headlong into the dog rescue business isn’t for everyone, but if your career path takes you to a landfill for any length of time, you’ll likely have many opportunities to help animals in need. Indeed, most dogs that are left at landfills will likely hang around—they can usually find a safe place to sleep and enough to eat. In some cases, the only recourse is to contact the local animal control authorities and ask them to capture the animal. That’s pretty much the only option if the dog is aggressive, but many landfills have a blanket policy to alert animal control automatically for any dog seen on site. Each landfill and every case is different and you can influence how your landfill handles these cases.
Duchess had turned up around mid-October and seemed okay adopting the landfill as her new home. She was clearly somebody’s dog; whoever owned her hadn’t even bothered to remove her collar. She wasn’t aggressive at all, but she also didn’t want any of us to catch her. And she seemed to be able to find enough food to survive—until she got hit by a car.
A Crisis of Conscience
Nobody saw what happened, but one morning she showed up with a badly broken hip. We could only assume she’d been in an accident. After that, Duchess couldn’t fend for herself and she began to slowly starve to death. For a while, I told myself to let it go, thinking there wasn’t much I could do to help. Then, I began to question my lack of compassion. I had recently rescued a kitten without hesitation and taken him home to live with me. Why should I impose a double standard here? How could I let my natural preference for cats allow this poor animal to suffer? So I began to feed her, and I figured I was doing my part.
But then a severe winter storm warning loomed just after Thanksgiving weekend. The rescue group I’d spoken with who would take her if I caught her told me she would probably freeze to death if left outside in her weakened condition. So I set about trying to catch her, putting out a crate that I hoped she would sleep in, but she stayed away, foiling my attempt to save her. Finally the brutal cold front arrived bringing arctic temperatures with it, and the next morning, she was in the crate.
She wasn’t happy about it, but I dragged her inside the front entrance of my building. I waited with her there until the rescue group arrived. They tried to pick her up, but she wouldn’t have it. So it was left to me to carry her like a baby to their vehicle. I had never in my memory been in such close proximity to the snout of a strange dog. I trembled as I lifted her and carried her about 20 yards to the car. What must have lasted less than 30 seconds seemed like an eternity, and then she was gone. Overwhelmed, I closed my office door and slumped into my chair. A lifelong fear was cleansed by the tears that flowed almost immediately.
Duchess spent several months living with a local Shepherd rescue group, where they nursed her back to health. I did volunteer work there regularly so I could keep tabs on her. Eventually, a friend of a friend adopted her and gave her a happy forever home. Duchess and the other dogs I rescued from the landfill had an unexpectedly profound positive influence on my life. If you ever work at a landfill, be prepared for a similar opportunity. | WA
Adam Jochelson, P. E., MOLO, is a Landfill Engineer and Facility Specialist working for GeoShack, Inc., where he promotes the application of cutting edge technologies to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of landfill operations. Adam built his knowledge and techniques over a nine-year period as the on-site engineer at McCommas Bluff Landfill in Dallas, TX. His unique experiences in engineering and other fields have combined to create an exceptional understanding of the various challenges inherent in landfill planning, design, and operations. Adam can be reached at (972) 342-3055 or via e-mail Adam at [email protected].
