Durham Animal Control Officer Bruce Rau Retiring After 42 Years

Bruce Rau has just about seen it all in 42 years.

Like the time a pot-bellied pig got loose, ran into the street and knocked a man off his motorcycle. Or, the time he rescued a cat stuck in a tree by having the tree chopped down.

"We seldom rescue a cat in a tree because eventually they'll come down when they get thirsty or hungry enough," says Rau. "He was stuck. He would have died there. So, we had the town come and cut the tree down."

Earlier this week, the 70-year-old's intention of retiring after spending more than four decades as Durham's animal control officer was announced by First Selectman Laura Francis.

"It's really the end of an era," Francis said. The end of an era alright. 

Rau was recruited for the job of dog warden back in 1971, by then Durham First Selectman Ira 'Ike" Kerschner. At the time, the town's dog pound was located on Parmelee Hill Road.

"I went down there and there were two dead dogs," he remembers. "One inside the run all maggots and one outside the run, just a skeleton. And so I says, 'Yeah, okay.'"

He initially agreed to take the job for two years but soon rescuing injured birds, trapping nuisance possums and chasing down wandering pets became Rau's second career. 

"$5 a dog I used to get when I started," he laughs.

Today, the job is a little more lucrative and the town's dog pound — a facility worthy of the envy of most animal control officers — is located just a few yards from Rau's home on Strawberry Hill Lane.

"The town gives us everything we need," he says. "Anything we ask for."

If success as an animal control officer can be measured, Rau has a very good track record in Durham, where his wife, Marty, estimates that about half of the town's dogs are licensed.

"There's twice as many licensed dogs in Durham than there are in the city of Hartford. And they've got plenty of dogs," she says. Marty has served as assistant animal control officer for many years and will be joining her husband in retirement.

The pair met while working at the Allegheny Ludlum steel mill in Wallingford where he worked or 35 years and she for 25 years.

"Back in the day he'd get a call at work. It would come in through to a switchboard operator. There were no cell phones or anything," Marty says.

Technology has changed, and while getting ahold of Rau these days is much easier, it's also proven to be a bit of a curse. State police aren't afraid to call him after midnight after an animal gets hit by a car or a nuisance dog wakes the neighbors.

"When the state police call at two o'clock in the morning, that gets old fast," says Marty.

Of course, there are the rescue stories that make it all worth it, like the time an Idaho truck driver lost his dog in Durham.

"He was delivering to Durham Manufacturing and the boxer jumped out of the truck on him," Rau remembers. "He went looking around town for it and he couldn't find it."

Rau later tracked the dog down at the Durham Fairgrounds and eventually found the truck driver, who had returned to Idaho and assumed he'd never see the dog again.

"I said, 'Listen, we'll keep the dog here for you.'"

Two months later, the truck driver returned to Connecticut, with his wife, to pick up the dog. "The dog almost turned inside out," Rau says.

Rau's career as Durham's animal control has apparently rubbed off on his children. Both of his daughters are animal control officers, one in Cheshire, the other in Higganum.

Soon Rau and his wife will take a trip in their giant RV to Tennessee, where they hope to purchase a home and retire for good.

"We're hoping. They've got seasons down there," Rau says.