Free Little Boy Blue by Kim Kavin Page A

seen a single one, and apparently, it wasn’t for lack of looking. One of the first things that Animal Control Director Ron Shaw told me is that the county no longer has a feral dog problem. There are still strays, yes, but the far bigger problem is people who fail to spay and neuter their dogs. Those people bring box after box of puppies to the shelter, either unaware or unconcerned that the dogs have little chance of making it out of the building alive.
    We began our talk in Shaw’s office, which is just a few steps from the shelter’s main entrance. The shelter’s front door boasts a weather-worn Petfinder.com bumper sticker whose top right corner is bent inward in dog-ear style. Inside the shelter’s entryway is the dispatcher’s desk, where calls are received about vicious animals, strays, or other problems. Behind the dispatcher’s desk is an office for the town’s three animal-control officers who respond to those calls. That office connects to the smaller office where Shaw works. Most of these spaces are institutional looking with few windows, limited natural light, and neutral yellowish paint. Everything was as clean as a grandmother’s favorite serving dish on the day that I visited, but the vibe was a far cry from warm or soothing. I had the same sense that I get when I walk into the police department in my own hometown, minus the bulletproof partition at the reception desk. This place, it seemed to me, was designed to create an aura of authority.
    Next to Shaw’s office is by far the largest one, used by the facility’s kennel attendant/adoption agent. That room has a more welcoming feel, with dog toys and supplies that people can purchase, a vending machine filled with cold sodas, a fish tank, a long table with chairs for groups that visit, and a fuzzy orange orangutan hanging above a desk to lighten the mood. On the day that I stood at this room’s entrance, a Golden Retriever mix named Buddy was lounging comfortably on the blue sofa. He might as well have been in my own den at home, he looked so content.
    Across the hallway from these offices are a couple of smaller, almost closet-size rooms, including the ones used for grooming and killing by lethal injection. Those two rooms are remarkably close to each other, actually. No dogs were in either of them on the morning that I visited. I actually couldn’t even hear a single dog barking as I walked from there into Shaw’s office.
    Shaw is not a particularly large or imposing man, though he projected an air of serious command and control as he offered me a chair and sat down behind his desk. He wore his official uniform as a county animal-control officer, with solid colors of tan and brown—shades that could have been pulled right out of an Operation Desert Storm camouflage jacket. The official seal of the Person County Animal Control department was embroidered onto his shirt like a soldier’s name or the American flag might be. The backdrop behind his desk was a wall filled with official-looking certificates from various training courses. They filled my line of vision like a subliminal show of clout whenever I looked him directly in the eye.
    His face is round and kind, though topped by a buzz cut that no doubt served him well during his time as a detention sergeant with the county’s human prisoners back in the early 1990s. Given his resumé and the salt-and-pepper flecks in his mustache, I’d guess that Shaw is in his mid-fifties. He has been Animal Control director for the county since 1997, and he is proud to say that he was the first person ever to hold that professional title instead of being called, simply, dogcatcher. Shaw is an ex-military man, and I got the feeling from him that the title distinction was important. The title defines the job. It defines the person’s place in the pecking order of the system. It also defines how the person is expected to carry himself. His tone when explaining his title reminded me of people in war zones