City seeking volunteers to help with animal control

The city has hired a part time dog catcher to assist with animal control after hours but may be open to having volunteers help with pet adoptions.

City councilman Don Cole said he has had a few people approach him offering to assist the city in rounding up stray dogs and cats.

"I've had some people come to me who are concerned about animals," Cole said last week during the Trumann City Council meeting. "They love the cats and dogs. Some of them even have as many as 14 or 16 they are trying to take care of.

"Some of them would like to see maybe a volunteer shelter program because they know that somehow we are having trouble for whatever reason trying to pick these animals up. I would like to see if we could discuss this in some way and try and get a handle on what the people are asking, which is to have some kind of control on animals that are running around."

Mayor Sheila Walters said she is open to having volunteers help out, but there are issues the city will have to resolve first about granting access to the dog pound.

The dog pound is located within the police firearms range and water treatment plant where chemicals are stored, she said.

"We have issues about just letting anyone go in those gates," Walters said. We would not want that particular area to be open to anyone to go in to. Now, whether or not we could have another area that animals could be temporarily stored at, that would be a possibility. But those are the rules on the facility out there. We need to control the 'into and out of' the dog pound."

The city currently employs one full time animal control officer. Walters said the addition of a second part time officer will allow the city to better respond to complaints about barking dogs during the after hours.

"That does not mean I am going to have two people running around in an animal control vehicle," Walters said. "It will be one. But it gives that person an opportunity at night when the police call and say we have a vicious dog where a second person can be called out rather than the same one being called out repeatedly and building up overtime or comp time."

Walters said volunteers might be able to help the city temporarily house and care for dogs when the dog pound is at capacity or with a pet adoption program.

The dog pound regularly houses 18 to 20 dogs, she said.

"We keep the pound full," Walters said. "Unfortunately after 10 to 12 days if those dogs are not adopted out or their owners have not called, (they) are put to sleep. We don't like doing that. We don't enjoy it for the animal and we don't enjoy it for the cost of getting the animal put to sleep. That's an extra expense the city has, (but) we try our best."

Walters said the city tries to find homes for the animals, but notes many of the dogs that come in to the pound are in poor physical condition.

"We adopt out quite a few dogs if at all possible," Walters said. "A lot of the dogs we get are animals that have mange or they're starved.

The city is open to suggestions,0 but can not leave the gate to the complex open 24 hours a day.

"We have other department back there that we have to be sensitive to their needs too," Walters said. "If we can do something that works for everybody, I'm open to suggestions."

Debbie Smith, deputy coroner and animal lover, said she would be willing to volunteer her time to help set up an adoption program similar to the one Northeast Arkansans for Animals have in Jonesboro.

NAFA accepts strays and unwanted animals, finds foster homes for the animals, gets them spayed or neutered and holds weekend adoption events at Petco.

"I think the big issue is to find a way to get them adopted out the ones that can," Smith said. "I know there are dogs that need to be put down because of health or they are aggressive, but there have been several put to sleep because the city can't afford to feed them."

Smith said she is also willing to put a few hours in each week at the dog pound feeding the animals and making sure they are taken care of.

"Anything like that," Smith said. "The times I have been out to the dog pound it was clean. I can't fuss about the dog pound."

Smith said she would like to see other residents step up and volunteer to help.

"I have several I have rescued and kept from putting to sleep," Smith said. "But it's going to take several people to do it. One or two people can't do it, that's for sure."

Animal control officer Carlton Ballard said he is definitely open to some help, especially if those volunteers could help with adoption.

The dog pound only has eight stalls and can only keep dogs for 14 days before they must be euthanized.

"If they want to that's fine with me," Ballard said. "I do have people out there that help."

Unfortunately, most people never come to pick up their dogs, he said.

"Very few come," Ballard said. "I do adopt one out every once in a while. But I don't have enough space to hold them. There's no way."

There are some in town who take a few of the dogs now and then, and he has held some for as long as a month in the hopes they would be adopted, he said. But mostly they get put down. The city doesn't have the resources to keep the dogs long term.

Ballard said Trumann still has a lot of dogs running loose, but it's a lot better than it has been in years past.

"It's still pretty bad," Balard said."Some weeks it's slow, other weeks you're busy."

Ballard said most of the dogs have homes but the owners just don't keep an eye on them.

"It's dogs that people just don't keep up," Ballard said. "They let them out to use the restroom then they turn and run off. Then they don't know where their dog is at. Sometimes they check other times they don't. And then you have some that people get tired of them and just turn them loose."