Decades in job show pooches rarely to blame
Four legs good, two legs bad.
Retiring Clutha dog control officer Allan Philip is looking forward to a break from his occasionally unruly clients — not always of the fourlegged kind.
Mr Philip (67), who leaves today after 40 years in the role, said it was seldom the dog at the root of a problem.
‘‘We get called out for wandering, barking or aggressive dogs mostly, although with Covid it’s quietened down a lot during recent times.
‘‘Clutha people are generally very good with their animals, being a rural patch, but there’s always an element who can be harder to deal with.
‘‘The old saying that it’s really a human problem stands true. Sometimes you just need to look at the other end of the lead.’’
The Milton native said he began working in the sector on leaving school, following training by the then Pest Destruction Council, whose work focused mainly on rabbit control.
‘‘That took me all over the country, but I came back to Milton in 1982 to work for the Bruce Combined Hydatids Company, which worked to control the spread of the parasite among working dog populations, and into people.
‘‘Bruce eventually got amalgamated into Clutha, and the role gradually changed into wider animal control, and a few things besides.’’
Mr Philip said no day as an animal control officer was without its ‘‘entertainment’’, although he had particularly enjoyed the educational element of his earlier years under Bruce council.
‘‘We used to take a [tapeworm] display case around the local schools to educate the kids about disease prevention, which had a sheep’s lung and other samples to terrify them a bit.
‘‘I was asking them about parasite hosts and they came up with horse, cattle, sheep and so on, but couldn’t quite get the important one, so eventually I wrote up ‘man’ on the blackboard.
‘‘One youngster — who’d been staring at the parasitic lung — piped up and said, ‘Boy, you women have all the luck . . .’.’’
The father of three and grandfather of four said he did not expect to be sitting idle very long in retirement.
‘‘We have a crib on the coast where we like to go fishing, and my wife Lynne said something about a ‘list’, so I’ll be busy enough.’’
He was also president of the South Otago Bowling Centre, and a keen golfer, tramper and cyclist.
‘‘I’ve been lucky to work with some great people over the years. No two days were the same.
‘‘But it will be nice just to have two dogs to take care of.’’
CLUTHA: