Wild Kingdom

Around 6:30 yesterday, as I sat the first half of the adult info desk shift, I read Miss Information on animals in the library. I wanted to comment about the skinks* we get at my place, but didn't get a chance for helping patrons. I also recalled the abandoned dog that kept coming in the automatic-opening doors, and which animal services didn't much want to come pick up -- and I paused to give thanks that we hadn't had an animal encounter in quite a while.

It was getting on to 8 p.m., and I was deep into a book order, when a colleague buzzed back to let me know she planned to make a call to the police. A patron with a child in a wheelchair had a strange dog (described as a boxer) jump into her van as she got the kid situated; the dog "refused to leave." It was raining out. As staff and the patron repeated the story to each other and the police, each used "refuse," as if we were talking about not a dog, but a drunk who had said "I ain't goin nowhere."

I let the staffer who had called the police handle it. An intercom announcement didn't bring anyone forward to claim the dog. The woman took her kid out of the van; the dog got out. She put her child back in, the dog leapt in again. In the end, the patron drove home (about an hour; she had travelled to us for a meeting) with the dog! She's a dog person, I guess.

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*Not long after that incident, a skink got into the back hall light fixture, so there was lots of messing around with the tall ladder and a trashcan in which to catch the critter.