Officers Create a Doggie Haven for Stray Pooches

Hannu Tarjamo knows all about dog day afternoons--dusky “p.m. shifts” when a cop has to pack more than his 9-millimeter Beretta. He has to bring out the Milk-Bones.

For years, the 30-year-old LAPD officer has rescued dogs in Southeast Los Angeles--angry dogs, abandoned dogs, abused dogs, dozens of them.

Tarjamo is one of several police officers who have made the Southeast Division in Watts a kind of doggie haven. From dewy-eyed puppies to street-smart old dogs who obey traffic signals better than many humans, all manner of pooch has come through Southeast.

“I’ve taken a bunch of pit bulls in my car,” said Tarjamo, a clean-cut, youthful-looking officer with the accent of his native Finland. “A lot of times, the dogs are scared of you because they’ve been abused so much. But when they know you want to help them--when you pet them--they’re so overcome with joy. They can’t believe they’re getting something positive from a person.”

If helping dogs has been accepted at Southeast--and can survive bad puns or references to Tarjamo’s patrol car as the “dogmobile”--it’s in large part due to one person.

Veteran Officer Sandra Magdaleno has by all accounts taken more than 200 dogs off the streets. Working in one of the city’s busiest, most violent areas, the 51-year-old Magdaleno certainly didn’t set out to rescue dogs when she joined the force 19 years ago.

But stray dogs were everywhere. In fact, South Los Angeles has the busiest animal shelter in the city, if not the entire country, said Jackie David, spokeswoman for the Los Angeles Department of Animal Services.

Most were simply scared, starved, diseased. Many were puppies, as Magdaleno saw it, “babies being allowed to run across the street.”

The abuse heaped on some dogs was jolting.

A teenager was arrested a few months ago after sticking an M-80 explosive in a dog’s mouth, blowing off its lower jaw. Magdaleno saw countless dogs dragging their partially paralyzed bodies for days after accidents. “Bait dogs”--usually strays used as practice opponents for fighting pit bulls--roamed shellshocked, torn and bloodied. Some dogs have been found incinerated, tied to discarded Christmas trees that have been set ablaze.

Magdaleno remembers one absurd encounter with dog cruelty.

She had stopped a motorist for a traffic violation and discovered he didn’t have a driver’s license. “I’m going to have to impound your car,” she told him. Exasperated, he blurted out, “Well, can I at least take my dog out of the trunk?”

She also recalls one particular rescue, 10 years ago, on Lanzit Avenue and San Pedro Street. For about a month, Magdaleno had been leaving kibble for two puppies who lived under a trash bin.

One day it rained so hard, the officer thought the pups could drown. But she couldn’t check on them until the end of her shift.

When she did, she found only one puppy, hiding near a parked car. After it saw Magdaleno, it dashed under the dumpster. But Magdaleno was waiting on the other side when it popped out.

“There was the puppy swimming toward the curb. It was my chance. I grabbed it by the back of the fur,” Magdaleno said. “It was so scared. I put it in the back of the car, and the poor little puppy just dug its nose into the edge of the cushion.”

It’s not easy work.

“A lot of these dogs stink. Some get nervous in the car and poop and pee. You don’t just grab, take them and you’re done,” she said.

Magdaleno is no longer on patrol duty, but officers bring her dogs, which she sometimes stashes in an equipment room that informally serves as the division kennel.

“Lots of officers have taken animals home. Sometimes they start calling friends, mothers ... trying to get them adopted,” she said.

Officer Benny Abucejo was in the market for a dog two months ago when he stopped by the equipment room. As it happened, Magdaleno had a 2-month-old grayish-black mutt in need of a home. He had been digging through trash earlier in the day.

“You could tell he was malnourished, but he was a good-looking dog, a playful kind of dog,” Abucejo said of the puppy his nephews and nieces dubbed Charcoal. “They love him. He’s perfect for my nephews and nieces to play with.”

Although some police officers go out of their way to place dogs in shelters that won’t euthanize them, the reality is that many dogs are in such horrible shape that hopes of being adopted, and surviving, are slim.

At least 30 police officers at the Southeast station own dogs that were plucked from the surrounding streets.

Some officers carry dog food or water dishes in their cars. “Standard equipment,” said Officer Catherine Sobieski.

Officers have spent hundreds, if not thousands of dollars, caring for dogs. Magdaleno once paid $600 for treatment of a mutt with really bad mange.

The police officer-dog connection isn’t unique to the Southeast Division. Taking strays off the streets is fairly common at many police stations, particularly in South L.A., part of the San Fernando Valley and the Eastside

Officer Kristi Nielsen found her black pit bull Gracey late last year inside a home where a man had been found murdered.

“It may have belonged to that man. It belongs to my stepdaughter now,” Nielsen, 38, said of the then 2-month-old pup she found whimpering in an upstairs room.

The pup slept in her police cruiser all day as the homicide investigation stretched on.

For Officer Sobieski, there’s another reason for tackling the problem of discarded and abused dogs. She remembers something she once heard.

“I was told that in many families where you have habitual child abuse, you’ll find neglected and abused animals. So if your neighbors have abused dogs, keep an eye on their children. See if they have bruises,” Sobieski said.

Still, if a cop ever dreams of cultivating a persona like “NYPD Blue’s” crusty Det. Andy Sipowicz, rescuing dogs doesn’t exactly help.

“You’re teased about it. Especially if you’re a guy. I think that’s what holds a lot of the men back,” Magdaleno said. “You’re supposed to be macho and all that good stuff, and here you’re picking up a mangy mutt and wanting to protect it.”

And the puppy Magdaleno rescued on that rainy day near the dumpster?

Ten years later she still has the cocker spaniel mix, a dog her children named Pretzel for reasons that elude her.

Recalling how the frightened pup stuck its nose into the car seat as if to hide, Magdaleno remembers thinking:

“We’ve got to show this puppy what a good life is like.”