Roy and Johnny respond to Bernardi's Market, called by the owner's wife who believes her husband was attacked by a maniac with a knife. Johnny investigates and comes face to face with 500 pounds of mortality: a roaring tiger. Roy asks the dispatcher to call Animal Control. Officer Dave Gordon (Mark Harmon) recognizes a Bengal tiger when he sees one; and his partner, Les Taylor, recognizes she is 450 pounds. A local man is operating an unauthorized zoo and mistreating animals. LA Animal Control is concerned with the animals' health; they want to tranquilize, not neutralize. At County Animal Shelter 2, Supervisor Walt Marsh, works with one vet, Dr. Barney Coolidge, and an assistant, trying to "catch and release" various types of wildlife displaced by modern civilization; often, they must also treat wounded or sick animals. Gordon and Taylor meet the paramedics again, trying to help an old man and his little disabled granddaughter who lost her pet Pygmy goat, William, in the brushfire. When William is found nearby, he is having trouble breathing. Johnny sends an EKG to Brackett; Roy hears rales in the goat's lungs and Mike detects a patent ductus in the heart...but Kel does not want a four-legged patient. Animal Control is unable to transport to a vet in time to save William. Will Dixie put her foot down, in time to save a little girl's therapy pet? Criminal charges and hard time faces Emil Gower. Will LA County Animal Control be able to save all of the beautiful animals he so brutally neglected?
—LA-Lawyer
