A teenage boy grimaces when he realizes who’s knocking at the front door of his house in Bennett, about 25 miles east of Denver.
Keith Davis, the Dumb Friends League’s top animal cop, is back.
The stench of overflowing litter boxes overwhelms Davis as he asks if the teen’s mother is home. Numerous cats slink through nearby bushes and gaze at Davis with diseased, red-rimmed eyes.
For some people, a tough day on the job means snarled traffic, heated debate with a boss or lost computer work. For Davis, it means confronting an abuser, discovering a dying animal or removing a pet from its home.
“Horses, dogs and cats cannot speak for themselves,” say Davis, an animal-cruelty investigator and one of the few in the Denver area with multicity jurisdiction. “Someone has to speak for them.”
After some questioning at the Bennett home, the woman who comes to the door grudgingly admits to having more than nine feral cats in the home, including a new litter of kittens.
Then, a small dog forces his way through the door.
“In Bennett, you are only supposed to have four animals,” Davis tells her. “And now I find out you’ve got a new puppy?
“Feral cats are known for having rabies, and it’s clear some of these animals are sick. This is ending now.”
Fortunately for most of the pet owners Davis contacts, he prefers to educate rather than punish. Three decades of working with pets has convinced Davis that teaching pet owners about proper care has the most lasting effect.
“Our primary concern is to protect the animals,” he says. “That’s not going to happen by accusing owners, calling them names or judging them.”
A helping hand
Davis leads a crew of four Dumb Friends League investigators who cover eight Colorado counties: Arapahoe, Adams, Boulder, Denver, Douglas, Elbert, Jefferson and Weld. Each is trained as a law-enforcement investigator and deputized by the state’s Bureau of Animal Protection to issue summonses to those who may violate animal-cruelty laws.
These officers can confiscate pets and assist local authorities during felony arrests after, for instance, a dog- or cock-fighting incident.
Municipal animal-control officers — like those who work out of the Denver Animal Shelter — enforce city ordinances designed to protect public health and safety and control barking. They also capture loose animals.
But Davis’ only duty is to “help the animals.” That means making sure an animal has adequate shelter, food and water. He also can offer additional care tips specific to certain pets and owners.
For instance, it is legal for “a junkyard dog” to be chained up all day. But Davis might talk with the owner about how a chained, un- neutered and unsocialized animal is a bite risk to humans.
“That person now knows what needs to be done,” he says. “They can’t claim ignorance later.”
The most heart-wrenching cases, Davis says, deal with sick and suffering animals.
It starts with a call
On average, he clocks 75 to 100 driving miles a day. Some cases are new. Others are follow-up visits to conduct interviews or gather the evidence necessary to build a prosecutable animal-cruelty case.
Those skills make Davis a valuable partner for local animal-control officers, says Doug Kelley, director of Denver Animal Care and Control.
“We just don’t have the resources to do that,” says Kelley, “because animal-control (officers) are usually tied up handling emergency calls.”
Mark Cowlishaw of the town of Bennett oversees building-code enforcement and permits in addition to animal control. Cowlishaw spent months trying to force compliance from the cat-hoarding woman, who is not being identified because her case is still pending. Davis provided valuable background in the case.
“Keith basically told me we needed to use a lot more force with the situation,” Cowlishaw says.
During his most recent visit to Bennett, Davis captured two 2-week-old kittens and took them back to the Dumb Friends League for testing.
Two weeks later, the Bennett cat hoarder voluntarily relinquished another dozen cats.
“If I have another problem, I will be calling Keith for sure,” Cowlishaw said. “He knows how to be helpful without stepping on your toes.”
Davis began working in the Dumb Friends League kennels almost 30 years ago. He became a kennel supervisor there, then a manager.
Davis followed that up with criminal-justice classes, and volunteered as an investigations clerk before becoming a cruelty investigator in 1993.
An investigation starts with a call or e-mail about a suffering animal, usually from a neighbor. Callers are well-meaning but not always knowledgable, he says. Davis has to decipher fact from fiction after a call.
Davis once received a complaint that a dog was in the backyard in the middle of a snowstorm. But the neighbor who reported the incident didn’t know that the dog was an Arctic breed and preferred to play in the snow rather than stay in his doghouse.
“Callers may say that a dog or cat is skinny or starving,” he adds. “But they don’t know . . . that pet could be dying of cancer and the owner has just paid $15,000 in vet care to save it.”
In another instance, a “rough handling” call sent Davis to investigate a case where kids and daycare staff reportedly watched in horror as a man beat his Jack Russell terrier in front of the day- care center.
Witnesses said the man tied the dog to a rock while he went into another nearby business. When the dog started barking, the owner came out and struck it several times on his head and neck.
One of the day-care workers even felt compelled to confront the man.
“I told him to stop hitting the dog,” said the woman, who is not being identified because this is a pending legal case. “He told me to shut up. He said this was his dog and he could do whatever he wanted to do to it.”
Then the man reportedly dragged the dog across a parking lot to his truck, and returned to the day-care center to confront the staffer again.
“In other countries and cultures, pets are regarded as private property that can be treated any way the owner sees fit,” Davis says. “But not here, and I have to make sure (owners) understand that.”
Davis also is a member of the Domestic Violence Coordinating Council in Denver. In that capacity, he consistently reminds the public about the connection between domestic violence, child abuse and animal cruelty.
“It’s his passion in life to protect animals,” says council executive director Doralee Larson, “and to make sure people are always thinking about them.”
Sheba R. Wheeler: 303-954-1283 or swheeler@denverpost.com
