Whitefield selectman Kurt E. Miller, the town’s acting ACO, is on a mission.
It’s a fresh mid-March morning. Pale sun is shining on ragged sheets of snow stretched over fields. A resident has asked Miller to check on a dead dog discovered in a ditch on the Palmer Rd.
Frost heaves on 218 South buck the black ’97 F150 Ford pickup, forcing Miller, an easy driver, to brake.
“The thing that bugs me,” says the selectman, accelerating again, “is I’m not trained to deal with rabid skunks or an ugly dog.”
He’s a mechanic; he knows cars. He should be at the shop right now.
But as the most recently elected board member, and therefore low man on the totem pole, he was assigned the job. Veteran selectmen Steve McCormick and Charlene Bartlett laughed when they appointed him last fall. That was right after the town’s fourth or fifth animal control officer in two years bailed.
Miller, 43, is good-humored about it all. That sense of humor, packaged and delivered in flat one-liners, often injects levity into board meetings. Like the time he urged the town’s snowplow contractor and road commissioner, stocking up on extra sand and salt in case of late winter storms: “Go light on the Cooper Road. I need the wrecker business.”
Repairing and selling vehicles 8-to-5 is what he and his father do at their Cooper Road garage and auto body shop, and when the younger Miller isn’t there, he’s at auto auctions. Running around town chasing out-of-control animals isn’t in the daily game plan.
Recently he took a complaint about a tomcat, followed by a dozen impatient follow-up calls. “I don’t have time in the daytime. I get to it as soon as I can,” he said. The unfortunate thing was that when he finally went to collect the critter to transport it to the Lincoln County Animal Shelter, he was driving his father’s truck. “The cat was in a Hav-a-Heart trap,” he says. “It was 10 below so I set the trap on the back seat,” inside Kurt Sr.’s king cab, instead of in the truck bed. It wasn’t long before tom marked his territory. “What a stink!” And not a good thing to bring home to Dad. Miller paid $60 to have the vehicle cleaned.
“That was the only bill I’ve submitted to the town,” he says.
Earlier last winter he received a call about caged domestic turkeys way across town not being fed, watered or properly sheltered. “When I got there, they had water, food, and shelter,” he says.
Another time, Miller went on a wild goose chase, in a manner of speaking, through that same section of Kings Mills. “I got a call on a Sunday morning about a supposedly rabid skunk. One gentleman said it had chased him up on his doorstep and into the house. I went all over the fields, back and forth. I couldn’t find him but I could sure smell him. …Just what I want to do on a Sunday morning.”
One Friday a week or so ago, the reluctant wrangler ducked a pigs-at-large emergency. An irate resident – “he was hopping mad,” says Miller – phoned the garage to say trespassing porkers were tearing up his lawn. At 5 p.m., EDT for Miller’s weekend snowmobile trip to Houlton, he received a second call informing him the farmer had arranged to contain the animals and repair the lawn. The neighbor was satisfied; the mechanic’s upcountry plans were salvaged.
“The job pays $14, $15 an hour plus mileage,” Miller remarks, and training is available. “The town will pay. If the town won’t,” he adds quickly, “I will.”
So what does it take to be an ACO?
“Well, you can’t keep every animal, you can’t save every animal,” Miller replies. “It’s like dealing with people. You try to stay neutral, don’t let your emotions get in the way.”
The town’s most recent ACO, who quit after a couple of weeks, was too tender-hearted and “wanted to take every animal home.” That just doesn’t work.
He reaches for his coffee mug, takes a slug, and continues, “It’s the perfect job for a retired person, someone who’s around – and has time.”
As the pickup creeps along Palmer Road, Miller spots the dead dog lying a short way down a steep embankment. Its stiff body is propped at the shoulders by a rock. Evergreen branches hover over the young, black Lab. It’s small, a female. The acting ACO peers closely. No collar, no tags. “Too bad,” he says quietly.
He grew up with animals – dogs, cats. His grandfather had horses, cows.
Back in the truck, Miller’s cell rings. Pressing it to his ear with one hand, shifting with the other as he turns the pickup around, he says into the phone, “Is it a titled vehicle? Who’d you buy it from? To do it legally you’ve got to have it in your name.” He says he’ll be there soon.
Heading back toward Thayer Road, past deep-cratered bowls of played out gravel pits, he returns to the subject. The ACO job.
“We don’t expect people to stop what they’re doing,” he says. “Just make a call and get there as soon as they can.”
