Helen Phillips has dealt with all sort of antics at work during the last 15 years.

There have been rabid racoons, spraying skunks, wandering dogs and injured deer she's tried to help as the animal control officer for Boxford and Georgetown.

But it was an overly friendly racoon that this ACO remembers most when she thinks about her work.

She received a call one morning at 3 a.m. to come out to a home that had an unwelcome and very curious visitor.

The woman who lived in the house made a visit to the bathroom in the middle of the night, keeping the lights off. She reached down and began to pet what she thought was the family cat.

To her surprise, it wasn't the cat with her in the bathroom | it was an enormous racoon, who had entered the home through a doggie door.

That's when she called Helen Phillips, the go-to person in town when pets or wild animals become a problem.

When Phillips arrived, she had to lock herself in the bathroom with the intruder to catch him and take him out of the house.

She moved the friendly critter to the woods, far from the house.

While it might have been a scary incident for the homeowner, it was one of many animal encounters Phillips has had since she took the animal control officer post in 1992.

Phillips, who grew up in Boxford and still lives in town, is a member of the Boxford Police Department and is called whenever there is an issue with an animal, wild or domestic. She is on call 24 hours a day, seven days a week; she's been the ACO for both towns since 1992.

"I kind of fell in to it. I took over for someone for a summer, and just stayed," said Phillips. "I've been an animal person my whole life, but had never thought of it as a career."

Before 1992, she was a recruiter for a tech company, but said she "was sick of getting laid off." An animal lover, the career switch to working with animals seemed only natural, especially in her hometown, she said. Phillips breeds Pekingese dogs and lives on a farm. She has 14 dogs, four horses and several barn cats.

"I like all animals, except for coyotes," she says.

The most common calls she receives happen when a resident sees a racoon, skunk or other animal that they suspect might have rabies or when deer or other animals are hit by cars. Boxford has no leash law, so Phillips is often called for dogs that are loose on roads or hit by cars, or when a dog bites a person, she said.

Education and prevention of the spread of the rabies virus became a big part of the animal control profession in the early 1990s, said Phillips. Rabies | which causes brain inflammation | can be transmitted between any two mammals, and is fatal if left untreated.

There are many regulations to follow in her profession, said Phillips. "Animals have a lot of rights, and that's a good thing."

Boxford and Georgetown are good towns to be an animal control officer in, said Phillips, because they have good dispatchers in the Police Department answering phones and "good, country people that know what to do (with animals)." She is busiest from March to November, the warmer months when animals are more active and having babies.

One of the biggest misconceptions about her profession is what she calls the "old dog-catcher mentality." Residents are sometimes afraid that she will take a stray or lost dog away and put it to sleep.

Not true, she says.

Any stray dog she picks up is held for a 10-day quarantine, to minimize the spread of disease, and then reunited with its owner. If an owner cannot be found, the dog is put up for adoption. Any dog or domestic animal that has been hit by a car is taken to an animal hospital immediately, and then put through the same process.

Phillips keeps in touch with the animal control officers from surrounding towns, and they all share stories, ideas and information to keep current, she said.

The hardest part of her job is when she encounters a deer that has been hit by a car but it still alive. It doesn't happen that often, but Phillips has had to shoot an injured animal to put it out of its misery.

"It's one of the hardest things to deal with," she said. "It's a mercy, but it's hard to do."

The best part her job, she says, is simple: "Helping animals is the most rewarding thing."



Animal facts

Here are a few things about local wildlife and animal control that you may not know, according to Animal Control Officer Helen Phillips:

Each town in the state is required by law to have an animal control officer

Any dog that is picked up by an animal control officer is held for a state-mandated 10-day quarantine holding period. After that, they try to return the dog to its owner. If the owner cannot be found, the dog is put up for adoption. "We almost never put dogs to sleep (because they aren't adopted)," said Phillips.

Racoons, foxes and skunks are not completely nocturnal. It is normal for them to be a little active through the day, especially around the time they are having babies.