Let Me Tell You about Jasper . . .

by Dana Perino

  We were standing near the Lincoln statue when we noticed headlights entering the park toward the far end, and we saw a police car racing down the middle of the park toward us.

  We soon realized the reason for the rapid approach: It was the Park Police and our dogs were off leash. Everyone immediately called their dog and reached in their pockets for their leash. I did the same, but alas—no leash! I had left it on the seat of the car.

  I quickly turned away and, with Henry walking extremely close, started to leave the park.

  “You! Stop!” I heard. I turned and sure enough, the policeman had leapt from his car and was advancing rapidly toward me. Busted!

  I explained to Officer Smith that I had left my leash in the car and was returning for it, so he asked for ID, then instructed me to wait while he went to the car. He took a few minutes, presumably checking I was not a serial dog-off-leash scofflaw and returned to write the ticket.

  I tried to make light of the situation and joke with Officer Smith, but he was all business. No response, no smile, no pleasantries in reply to mine.

  I duly received my ticket and was told that I could pay at any of the stations listed on the back. I informed Officer Smith that there were some suspicious squirrels at the end of the park that he might want to check on, and returned to my car.

  Okay, I got a ticket. I was in the wrong, I broke the law and I am not arguing with that. I had fifteen days in which to pay and so on November 24 I reported to First District Substation on E Street SE in Washington, D.C., as listed on the back of the ticket.

  I was informed that they did not accept the payments anymore, and my inquiry as to where they thought I might be able to pay was met with a disinterested shrug and the words “Park Police headquarters.”

  I returned home and, as we were leaving town for a couple of days, I decided to call the Park Police headquarters on Ohio Drive SW to check whether they accepted payment, or ask where I should mail the check, as the ticket stated, “You may mail in the collateral” but did not state where to mail the payment, how to make the payment, or to whom the payment should be made. However, all I got was an answering machine; an hour later I got the same. Are you starting to see a pattern here?

  I have since learned that the ticket I received with both wrong and missing information had been incorrect for six years. A friend got a ticket six years prior and the station on E Street SE did not accept payment then.

  So I duly wrote a check made out to U.S. Park Police and mailed it to the headquarters, with a letter explaining that their ticket contained wrong and insufficient information. I also stated, “I know that the job of ticketing dog owners whose dog is off leash is highly important—especially in time of war and terror threats, not to mention D.C.’s soaring crime rate. However, if someone at your department could see their way to having a ticket written in competent language with correct information, perhaps we might feel our taxes are not being totally squandered.”

  They received my letter and did not reply for twelve days before stating that my payment was unacceptable and that I should send a money order to the D.C. Court.

  By the time I received the letter it was already ten days past the cutoff date and the ticket stated that this would “result in the case being presented at the District of Columbia Superior Court for disposition.”

  Given that I had made three attempts to pay, and some information on the ticket lacked sufficient details while other information was just plain wrong, I decided to have my day in court. I wanted to explain to the judge just how apathetic/indolent/incompetent the Park Police are with their tickets. And as a newly minted citizen (for all of about two months), I knew it was my right!

  I was therefore awaiting notice to attend court, but did not hear anything for some time. Given that the Park Police are apparently incapable of producing a competently written ticket, this didn’t surprise me. However, upon returning from a business trip in April I found a letter inviting me to go to the police station on Fourth Street SW so that they could process me through court on the same day. This was part of “Operation Clean Slate.” (I’m not kidding or exaggerating.)

  On Wednesday the eighteenth I went to the station but was told it was too late for processing that day and was asked to return early the next morning, preferably before 7 a.m. When I asked how long the process would be, I was told, “Oh, an hour and a half, maybe two hours.”

  So on the nineteenth I arrived at the station at 6:45 a.m. and was promptly arrested! The arresting officer asked what had happened and he shook his head in amazement. “They issued a warrant for that?” he asked incredulously. “Why didn’t you go to the court and pay the fine?”

  Oops! That’s something else not mentioned on the ticket… Apparently the Park Police expect citizens to be psychic. So during the twelve days my letter was sitting in the Park Police headquarters being ignored, they had gone ahead and issued a warrant.

  My belongings and belt were taken and I was placed in a cell. Now, I am a normal, law-abiding person. I’ve never been in a cell in my life, and my reaction was somewhere between surprise and fascination. It was just like the TV shows. The fact that I knew a judge would release me as soon as I was through the court proceeding meant that I was never worried—this was in no way a long-term situation—but it was strange to know that I could not leave if I wanted to. I no longer had any control over my own freedom and while awaiting transportation to the court I contemplated how awful it must be for someone who knows they will be incarcerated for a long time. It doesn’t matter how many times you see it on the TV; it’s different when you are there yourself. I was tempted to ask if I could get a tattoo of Henry on my shoulder to mark the occasion.

  However, when the other prisoners were taken to court and I remained there, I inquired as to why and was told that, as I was a Park Police case, I must await a Park Police officer.

  Of course nobody turned up from the Park Police station for a couple of hours, so I sat and waited patiently, counting the tiles on the floor (8,280) and finding the whole situation actually quite amusing. Though by this time I knew that the parking meter was running out for my car; so much for a couple of hours.

  Finally, the Park Police arrived and it was none other than my old nemesis Officer Smith! He searched me again and, after handcuffing me, led me to his car. At least I sat in the front so it wouldn’t look like I had been arrested if anyone I knew saw me.

  When he got into the driver’s seat, I said, “When you put me in the car, weren’t you supposed to put your hand on my head, like they do in the movies?” He did not respond.

  I tried making conversation with Officer Smith but the responses were monosyllabic and usually one word. I tried making jokes, but they fell on deaf ears. All business, this guy (or maybe the squirrel jibe was still rankling him). Upon arrival at the headquarters building, I was taken to another cell and the cuffs were released, then after five minutes Officer Smith brought me out and cuffed me to a wooden bar while he filled in the necessary paperwork. It’s probably just as well he did, because by this time I was considering fleeing. If I could just overpower this young, fit, armed officer and steal his ID to open the door before anyone noticed—the place was after all virtually empty—I could be free! I could see the headlines: LEASHLESS DOG WALKER STALKS D.C. PARKS.

  I knew I was also allowed to call my wife, but I was a little afraid to. Dana had warned me several times about getting that ticket paid, and when I told her I was going to exercise my rights she told me I was going to be arrested. I didn’t believe her. Now I was going to have to call her at the White House where she was the acting press secretary and surely “didn’t need this crap.” Her White House voice can still scare me to this day.

  So I said to Officer Smith that I would like to make a call. He looked at me blankly.

  “I’ve seen the movies. I know my rights,” I said with a smile.

  He grudgingly obliged.

  When I called the press office, her assistant press sec
retary Carlton Carroll answered the phone. He said she was in the Oval Office and asked if I wanted to interrupt the meeting. Over my dead body! So I asked him to leave her a message, which he promptly e-mailed. She saw a message came in and snuck a peek at her Blackberry. All it said was that I had been delayed and that she needed to arrange for the dog walker to come take care of Henry.

  She later told me that she knew immediately. “That jerk’s been arrested.” (Right on both counts.)

  More handcuffs, another car, and I was soon at the court building, where, once Officer Smith was sure we were behind locked doors, I was handed over to the processing officers.

  Form-filling and fingerprinting followed; however, these fellows, while highly professional, were a lot more relaxed. When they asked the reason for my arrest and I told them “walking my dog without a leash,” the response was hilarity. I think I was the first, as it took them some time to find the nearest category for me on the computer!

  When they stopped laughing, a mature officer of some years’ service also told me, “This is ridiculous.” He explained that most officers would have used their initiative, had the warrant delayed for a couple of days, and made a call, or even visited me to tell me to go to the court and pay.

  Still we enjoyed the humor of the situation and made a few wisecracks, while they fed me cheese sandwiches and lemonade and, after ten minutes in my third cell, I was cuffed again and placed in the back of yet another car to be taken to the Superior Court building a couple of hundred yards away.

  By this time, it was early afternoon, and the officer driving told us he was rushing so that we would be processed that afternoon. He explained that if we weren’t processed that day it would mean an overnight stay. Now it wasn’t quite so funny!

  When he asked the reason for my arrest and I told him, it resulted in the same outburst of disbelieving laughter. “Are you serious? You were arrested for that?”

  So now I arrived at the Superior Court, where the handcuffs were finally removed, only to be replaced with leg shackles! “If my friends could only see me now,” I thought with a wry smile.

  Following another search, I found myself in the fourth cell, one I shared with twenty others.

  A couple hours more cell time and after three court-appointed attorneys shared the humor of the situation and expressed their disbelief that an arrest had been made for this, I found myself in front of the judge.

  I explained what had happened and even the judge smiled. With my English accent I was clearly a relative newcomer to the United States, and I had made three attempts to pay via a Park Police system that I described to him as blatantly incompetent, but it had not been possible given the inadequate information they provided.

  The judge told me that this should not have happened and that I should not have been there that day. I held up my manacled leg and said, “Well, Your Honor, it’s been a very interesting day and I’ve had a good insight into the U.S. judicial system.” He smiled and said, “Welcome to America!”

  Upon payment my record would be expunged, and I left the court a free man. I had to collect my belongings from the Park Police station the next day—they had told me that after 3 p.m. the office would be closed. I hope nobody went there to pay a fine that afternoon.

  As my car keys were with the belongings, I walked there with Henry on a delightful April morning. (On the leash all the way, I would add! Well, most of it…)

  Oh, and the good news was… I did not get a parking ticket after being off the meter all the previous day! But if I had, I would have paid that ticket right away.

  One Last Swim

  Henry was an athletic dog but had a few health problems along the way. He used to dive underwater for big rocks, stay under while he hunted for the right one, and then bring it to the surface, his tail up and proud. Unfortunately, this led him to crack one of his molars and he had to have major dental surgery.

  He also had several cysts that had to be removed over the years, and some of those had precancerous cells. But it was in his thirteenth year that he really started to fade. The diagnosis was Cushing’s disease.

  There was really nothing more they could do.

  Henry loved to swim. So much.

  CREDIT: J. DAVID AKE

  Vizslas go gray early, starting around five or six, and when I used to worry that Henry wasn’t well or that he was aging too quickly, Peter would point to his own head and say, “He looks just like me. Distinguished.” By the time Vizslas are ten, many of them have gone mostly white in the face, which makes me love them even more.

  When I started work on The Five and we planned to move to New York, I fretted about Henry’s health. I knew that taking him out of his home and his neighborhood was going to be stressful.

  Peter assured me he would be taking care of Henry and that I didn’t need to worry. They got to know everyone in the neighborhood—they’d stop and play Trivial Pursuit with the doormen in our building, get an ice cream from Scotty on Forty-Fourth Street, and have a chat with the guy that sold vintage comic books on the corner. It seemed like everyone in Midtown knew Mr. Henry.

  Henry was an early fan of The Five.

  Sadly, I was right about the move being hardest for our dog. The city was loud and chaotic. There was no grass or trees in our area. Henry had to ride in an elevator just to go outside to do his business on noisy Forty-Second Street. (Henry relieving himself on the busiest block in the center of the Western world is a metaphor for something… I’m just not sure what.)

  Henry’s world was upended and his health started to fail just as my new career was taking off. I wanted to enjoy that new job fully, but my mind was often on the dog I’d loved for so long.

  It’s been a few years since that time, and yet I still have difficulty telling this story without crying. And I know that my fellow dog owners will understand exactly how I feel.

  With every dog story, there’s a joyful beginning, a wonderful, charming middle, and a tearful end.

  Here’s what happened. I knew Henry was not doing well and didn’t think he’d live through the summer. It was March 2012, and the weather was starting to show some signs of a thaw. I wanted to take Henry to his favorite place—the beach. We finally found a dog-friendly beach online and planned to go that weekend.

  Traffic in the city is always terrible, and I’m a nervous passenger. I was worried sick about Henry and my energy was spent from a long week of work where we’d argued about the presidential election on every show. When a driver cut us off, I snapped at Peter and he snapped back at me, and Henry shrank back into the seat. Then I felt even worse. We just needed to get to the beach. We drove in silence.

  When we got there, the beach was a long distance from the parking lot. And there were big signs saying, DOGS MUST BE LEASHED AT ALL TIMES. Some dog beach that was.

  Henry struggled on the soft sand on the way there, so we took it easy. The wind was strong. When we finally got to the beach, Henry smelled the salt air and he got a little pep in his step. I took off his leash. There weren’t many people around and I couldn’t imagine anyone would hassle us for letting our geriatric dog have one last romp in the waves. He even trotted a bit into the water.

  Peter and I met eyes. We were both crying, but this time not because he was so cute, but because we knew he was going to leave us soon.

  “See how happy he is,” Peter said.

  It was so windy we couldn’t carry on a conversation. But I felt the fresh air was doing us all some good. When we started the long walk back up the beach, Henry faltered and his front legs buckled. I yelped. Peter scrambled in the sand to help him up.

  Henry couldn’t walk, so Peter picked up our seventy-five-pound dog and carried him for a while. Eventually, Peter set him back down on the sand, and Henry was able to walk very slowly back to the car.

  Peter and I were barely speaking—no longer because of our anger from earlier in the day, but out of fear and worry.

  On the ride home, I held Henry’s chin in my hand
and we agreed—something was very wrong.

  We had painkillers for Henry and we gave him one. (I considered taking one myself.) By the time we got back to the apartment, Henry still seemed to be in pain, so we gave him another pill. But that just made him seem drunk. Henry wasn’t at all himself.

  A few hours later with no improvement, Peter decided he had to take him to the emergency vet on Fifty-Fifth Street. He hurried to get dressed for the winter night, and I kissed Henry on the head and told Peter to hurry.

  I didn’t go with him. And that’s one of the biggest regrets of my life.

  Because Henry never came home.

  The next morning, we hoped to go pick him up. But the call we got was that we needed to get to the hospital immediately. Henry was fading.

  The taxi driver must have thought the world was ending. In many ways, ours was. We managed to tell him where we needed to go.

  English wasn’t our driver’s first language, and usually Peter talks to taxi drivers and often he’s been to their home countries. We felt terrible that we seemed so rude since we were so distraught. When he pulled up to the curb outside of the Blue Pearl Animal Hospital, he turned to us and kindly said, “I am so sorry.” I wish I could have hugged him, but we were running out of time.

  When we got there, we were ushered downstairs into the ICU-type room. There were lots of other pets there—including a rabbit, and I remember thinking, “Who has a rabbit in NYC?” (My friend later told me the answer: French chefs.)

  Henry was on the floor hooked up to an oxygen machine. I got on my knees and kissed his face and thanked him for being such a good dog. Peter could barely manage to do the same.

  I stood and remembered what my grandfather, who had such a soft spot for animals, told me on the ranch. “Never ever let an animal suffer.”