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Amanda Rutledge steers her white Chevy Express van through midmorning traffic in South Omaha when a call arrives on her two-way radio.
A car hit a cat near 42nd and Leavenworth Streets.
Rutledge heads north on 42nd Street. She spots the cat lying on the sidewalk, flicks on the van's orange emergency lights and pulls to the curb.
It's one of the first calls of the day for Rutledge, an animal control officer for the Nebraska Humane Society.
She slides out of the driver's seat and walks quickly to the orange-and-white cat lying on the sidewalk. An Omaha police officer stands nearby.
The cat is panting heavily. Blood oozes from its face. Its tail twitches.
“He's got to go to the shelter,'' Rutledge tells the officer.
The cat has no collar. Rutledge scans the animal with a device to detect whether it has an ID chip with owner information. The scan turns up nothing.
She softly lays a blue blanket over the cat, gently scoops it up and places the animal in a plastic carrier, which she slides into the van for the ride to the shelter.
Rutledge, 24, joined the Humane Society three years ago. The job gives her a chance to put her beliefs into practice: All animals should be treated with kindness and compassion, love and respect, whether it's a shiny-coated golden retriever, a ragged-looking raccoon or a skinny gray squirrel.
She grew up on a rural acreage near Crescent, Iowa, with a slew of pets. Black Labs Duke, Darla and Midnight. A chocolate Lab named Molly. Miss Tia, a Rottweiler. Whiskers the cat and a horse named Twister. And her first dog, a German shepherd named Rosco.
With no other little kids close by, her pets became her playmates. She remembers playing with dolls in the backyard as Duke and the other dogs followed her around. She remembers playing fetch and crawling into the doghouse. She remembers brushing and riding Twister.
Rutledge pulls her van into a garage at the animal shelter near 90th and Fort Streets. She slides the injured cat from the carrier and cradles it in her arms as she walks quickly into the shelter.
“I have a hit-by-a-car cat,'' she tells the vet. “He's not doing very good.”
Dr. Amber Horn looks the cat over. There's no hope. The cat's in shock, with a broken jaw and severe chest injuries.
Horn euthanizes the cat. A few minutes later, Rutledge carries the body to a refrigerated room.
The cat had a clean coat and looked well fed. Rutledge knows it could have been someone's pet that got loose or was let out by the owner.
She and the Humane Society's 21 other officers responded to more than 30,000 calls last year in the Omaha area and Sarpy County.
Officers encounter all sorts of cases: loose pets, lost pets, dog bites, animal cruelty, injured hawks, raccoons in basements, bats in bedrooms.
Some of Rutledge's calls are sad. But others have been strange, or even a little funny.
Skunks apparently are fond of yogurt because she's responded to calls about one staggering around with a yogurt container stuck on its head. Her strategy? Knock the container off with a pole — then run like heck.
Last year, Rutledge was cruising through South Omaha heading to another call when something caught her eye — a couple of chickens crossing the road. They clucked and flapped their wings as she tried to corral them. She finally cornered them against a fence.
People will call about a “big snake” and it turns out to be an 8-inch garter snake. But not always. When she pulled up to a sidewalk in southwest Omaha a couple of years ago, a 7-foot python greeted her. She grabbed it behind the head and still remembers the snake's strength as it tried to break free.
After the cat euthanization, it's nearly noon and Rutledge is heading to a call about a possible loose pit bull near 33rd and R Streets in southeast Omaha, the area she was assigned to for the day.
She pulls up in front of the house where the caller said the pit bull's owner lives.
Tracking down loose dogs is important. They can be a danger to people, but also to themselves. They can get hit by a car or get in a fight with another dog.
She knocks on the door but gets no answer. There's no sign of a loose dog, so she posts a notice on the door telling the homeowner to call her.
Another call soon arrives. No pit bull sighting on this one. Just a bunny.
A security guard at the Midtown Crossing development at 33rd and Farnam Streets has reported an injured rabbit.
The guard says the rabbit had been lying in the grass on the east end of the development. Rutledge and the guard hunt for the bunny, looking under trees and along the sidewalk.
The guard spots the animal. It's young, and tries to get away. But it hops in a circle. Then it stops.
Wearing welding gloves, Rutledge lifts it up and holds it in front of her. The rabbit has infected wounds.
Rutledge knows the animal is sick, dying and probably in pain. It must be euthanized as quickly as possible, so she puts the bunny to sleep in the van.
Her shift is winding down. Soon she will drive back to the shelter.
Sometimes when she's behind the wheel, she thinks about the calls she's had over the years.
Sad cases sometimes stand out, but she likes to remember the ones that make her feel good.
One of the best was two years ago on a winter night. A woman taking trash to a bin behind an Omaha bar thought she heard kittens.
Rutledge climbed into the trash container and dug around. She found a plastic grocery bag and looked inside.
No kittens. But she saw nine puppies, about a week old. Golden retriever mixes, cold and hungry but still alive.
A dog rescue group took the puppies and found homes for all of them.
For Rutledge, the dumpster diving paid off.
She saved some lives.
Contact the writer:
444-1122, michael.oconnor@owh.com
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