The large German shepherd bolted left, then right. Ryan Jesien was trying to catch the stray dog with a leash, but the pup kept evading him.
Jesien, a Montgomery County animal services officer who had done this hundreds of times, knew what to do: He sat in a chair and waited for the dog to come to him.
“It’s okay,” Jesien said in a soft voice as the dog came closer. “I got you,” he added, easing the leash over the dog’s neck.
Jesien, 44, led the German shepherd into his truck, where he scanned the dog for a microchip. There was none. The pair headed to a Maryland shelter, where Jesien knew the dog would either be picked up by his owner within five days or offered for adoption.
In his 11-year career, Jesien estimates he’s helped about 16,000 animals; some are lost like the German shepherd, others are injured — and the most harrowing cases involve animals that are abused. For those, he helps bring charges against the owners. He also rescues injured wild creatures, and helps many of them get rehabilitated.
The satisfaction of the rescue — which Jesien called “the greatest feeling in the world” — keeps him coming back every day.
“The only way that I could enjoy this job more,” Jesien said, “is if there were two of me.”
He once saved a bald eagle that couldn’t fly, catching it in a net and taking it to wildlife rehabilitators, who released it a few weeks later. He also rowed a canoe across the Potomac River to free a drowning cormorant trapped in fishing line. Possibly his favorite rescue was when he found a cat stuck under the hood of a car.
He often does his work in public, like the time in D.C. he had to euthanize a deer that was hit by a car, and he heard a nearby woman exclaim, “Oh my God, that boy is police and a doctor.”
He now puts stuffed cats and other toys on his dashboard to signal that he’s not a police officer.
Many cities and counties don’t have enough officers for the large amount of animals who need help, said Jerrica Owen, chief executive of the National Animal Care and Control Association, a group that provides resources and training to animal control officers.
“They really wear a million hats,” Owen said. “And I don’t think they have been given the level of recognition in our country, quite frankly, that they should.”
Jesien started his career working for organizations that help people with disabilities. He studied social work in graduate school, but then decided that wasn’t the right fit for him. He has always had a soft spot for animals, so that informed his career pivot.
He began at a D.C. animal shelter in 2015 and recalled the feeling of pride the first time he vaccinated a dog by himself.
In 2023, he took a job in Montgomery County, where he now spends his days responding to calls about sick, lost or dangerous animals.
Typically, Jesien works 10- to 12-hour shifts three to five times a week. But last month, the county’s understaffed team received so many calls that Jesien said he worked 36 consecutive hours (he needed one cat nap in his truck).
Hectic work schedules are common this time of year for officers because it’s mating season for many wild animals, so there’s an influx of babies and an uptick in injuries. Plus, Jesien sees an increase in animal bites, as well as runaway dogs and cats.
“It’s spring: There’s a lot of life, and unfortunately, there’s a lot of death, too,” Jesien said while typing an incident report in his truck on a recent afternoon.
He earns trust with stray dogs by making himself smaller. He hunches or drops to his knees and entices dogs with food. Once, he said, it took 25 minutes of feeding chicken to a stray pit bull before he could slip a leash over the dog’s head.
When he arrived on the call about the German shepherd, he parked in front of a Farmers Insurance office, where workers found the dog outside. After managing to slide a leash onto he dog, Jesien led him into his truck and pulled a seat belt over him. He blasted air conditioning for the dog and named him Farmer.
On the way to the shelter, Jesien’s laptop chimed with a message from the shelter: A man had reported that his German shepherd, Smokey, had escaped through the passenger seat window of his air-conditioned car.
The owner was waiting at the shelter when Jesien arrived.
“It is 89 degrees,” said Jesien, who added he has witnessed two dogs die of heat exhaustion. “That is hot. I know people leave their dogs in air conditioning frequently. The problem that I have with that is that system often fails.”
“He is a wonderful dog,” Jesien added. “And I do not want to see anything bad happen to him.”
A shelter employee then brought Smokey into the reception area, where the dog, freshly microchipped, excitedly jumped on his owner, who promised not to leave the dog alone in his car again.
Jesien hopped back into his truck to respond to a few more calls before returning to the shelter that night, after his colleagues had departed.
Near the end of every shift, Jesien said he thinks about whether he made a difference that day. On this recent day, Jesien said, he was thinking about reuniting Smokey with his owner.
Before driving home, Jesien checked on the shelter’s rescued and surrendered kittens. He said goodbye, pet a few of them, and told them he’d return the next day.
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