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RAISED ON NEIGHBORING farms, Dale and I were old hands at working with critters. Once the animal control officer and several deputies removed the dogs from Kurst’s property early Wednesday morning, the shelter staff planned to assess their issues, clean them up, and secure them in areas where they felt safe and couldn’t harm others. Volunteers like us would help wherever possible.
Dale fussed a little about impending snow, and he checked the weather three times before we left home to be sure we weren’t heading into a blizzard. We wore Carhartt jackets, both for warmth and protection from bites and scratches. Yes, we’re animal lovers, but we also know the dangers of working with dogs who’ve been mistreated.
We arrived at the shelter to find Bonner County’s animal control officer, with the help of the sheriff’s department, had rescued twenty-three dogs in varying states of health. Everyone present wore expressions of concern. Though Big Woods had a no-kill policy, some of the animals had poor prognoses. Still, none of us wanted to see a single dog euthanized if we could prevent it.
The shelter had several areas for dogs. One room had roofed cages, in case an “inmate” liked to climb. Farther on, a few pens had exterior doors that opened onto a run. Here the more violent dogs could be let outside so workers could enter and clean their cages, much like zookeepers do with lions and tigers. At the back of the shelter was housing for seized dogs that as yet had no decision from a judge as to their fate. They might go back if their owners convinced the court they’d change their ways. I doubted any of Kurst’s dogs would spend very long there.
Throughout the shelter were signs of caring concern for the animals. Dishes attached to the walls provided continuous fresh water through a piped system. Each dog had a bed made of canvas stretched over a PVC pipe frame, which allowed it to sleep suspended above the cement floor. Though the place smelled like animals, the staff made constant efforts to see that the odor wasn’t unpleasantly overpowering.
The newcomers were taken to the facility’s intake room, separating them from animals already in residence. Except for the labradoodle pups, the dogs were filthy and infested with worms and fleas. The adults in particular were in very poor condition. The single adult male, a poodle, was a rack of bones, and three female Labs were listless and worn out with over-breeding. Two were pregnant. “It looks like the guy picked the ones that were likely to sell and gave them decent treatment,” Sylvia told us. “The rest had to fend for themselves.”
Crowded together, poorly protected from the elements, and underfed, it was a wonder any of them had survived. In addition to the dog theft charge, Kurst now faced multiple counts of animal cruelty. It was up to us to repair the damage he’d done if we could.
The first order of business was baths for all, both for the safety of the shelter’s other residents and to better allow the visiting veterinarian to assess each dog’s condition. Along with three staff members and four other volunteers, Dale and I sorted the dogs into those who seemed likely to resist our efforts and the ones who meekly accepted whatever befell them. It was a delicate process, since they weren’t used to being handled in any positive way. We volunteers worked with the gentler ones, though we still wore bite gloves and watched for sudden changes of mood that might result in a nip or a scratch. After staffers scrubbed away the accumulated dirt from their fur and applied a topical treatment down their backs to kill any vermin they carried, Dale held each dog while I rubbed it dry, talking softly as we worked.
Kurst’s aggressive house dogs were handled by trained staff. New surroundings with unfamiliar sounds, gushing hoses, and strange people turned them half-mad. The Chihuahua never stopped its piercing bark as it was bathed and checked for skin problems, the border collie cowered and growled low in her throat when her turn came, and the Rottweiler lunged at anyone who came near his cage.
Judging him their worst problem, the handlers had him leashed, even inside the cage. When his turn came for a bath, one worker held the leash tightly from the back while another opened the door. The dog strained forward, making choking sounds that hurt my heart. Moving quickly in on his blind side, a third staffer fastened a nylon muzzle in place. Once he could no longer bite, they guided the dog out. When he stepped forward, workers slipped a grooming noose around his neck. The thick wire loop attached to metal poles allowed two handlers to limit the dog’s movement, so he could neither attack nor escape. While they held him still—and that wasn’t easy—a woman fastened a collar hung with chains around his neck. Carefully they lifted the struggling dog into the washtub and attached the chain ends to D-rings anchored at its sides. The Rottie never stopped fighting, and I wished there was a way to let him know the humans were acting for his benefit.
One of the staff, a tall woman with ash-blond hair pulled back in a ponytail, turned on the water and tested the temperature with a hand. Speaking soothingly, she began bathing the dog, handling him as gently as possible. Oddly enough, when the water flowed over him, he stopped fighting and wriggled a little, as if enjoying the warmth and the feel of the brush on his skin. The atmosphere in the intake room brightened for a while at the prospect that he might actually learn to like it there.
The mood didn’t last. When the bath was finished and the Rottie had to be lifted out of the tub, a second battle began. Of course he shook the water off, which wet anyone within six feet, but he went into a rage again when a worker tried to dry him with a towel. They decided the best plan was to set a small space heater outside his new quarters until he was dry. Everyone breathed a sigh of relief when he was taken away, still resisting at every step. “He’s clean,” someone said, “but he’s decidedly unhappy about it.”
As we worked with the remaining dogs, the conversation turned to Steven Deline’s murder. “They don’t know where it happened,” Pam Carroll explained to those who didn’t live in Allport. “Barney says that will make it harder to find the killer.”
Barney, one of Allport’s youngest officers, was no doubt highly popular as a source of information. Rory’s men wouldn’t tell secrets if they valued their jobs, but they could speculate just like everyone else.
“What a scary thing to have a murderer running loose in town!” said a guy who wore what I’d call attempted dreadlocks.
“I hear there’s a suspect,” Pam said in a voice that hinted at secret knowledge. Though she was wonderful with animals, Pam also took the most dramatic slant on any scrap of information under discussion. “It’s a guy who’s been defacing signs around Allport.”
“Defacing signs?” someone repeated.
“He fixes misspellings and puts in punctuation, stuff like that.”
The woman who’d dealt with the Rottweiler, Allison, crooned soft sounds as she eased a puppy away from its siblings. When it stopped whining she remarked, “I live in Lawson so I hadn’t heard about it, but if the guy corrects mistakes, I’d say he’s improving the signs, not defacing them.”
“The signs aren’t his to change,” Pam said primly. “He should mind his own business.”
“I suppose.” Allison didn’t sound convinced. “Why would he have killed this person?”
Pam shrugged as I wrapped a towel around the puppy she’d just washed. “Deline caught him changing a sign, I guess.”
“You don’t kill somebody for that.”
“You and I don’t. The Grammar Nazi probably thinks he was sent by God to fix the world, so nobody’s got the right to stop him.” Taking the dog from me, Pam grasped it firmly under her arm. “I’m not saying he meant to kill the man. He must have lost it.” To the puppy she said, “Okay, little girl. You’re next with the doctor.”
When she was gone Allison shook her head. “If the man wasn’t killed in the alley, how would he have caught the grammar guy doing his correcting thing?”
“People look for an easy answer,” I replied. “This case doesn’t seem to have one.”
Allison frowned. “It’s a long way from vandalism to murder.”
“True.” “Some people like things done according to the rules.” Lowering her voice she added, “I went to high school in Allport, and I worked for an optometrist there, Dr. Mesick. He was a real stickler for proper English.” Allison planted a kiss on the nose of the dog she held. “Correcting a misspelled sign sounds like something he’d do in a heartbeat.”
