Because of an increase in animal control calls and intakes at the Walker County Animal Shelter, the county commission is considering combining the animal control department with the shelter and adding new positions.
"One of the challenges we have in Walker County with animal control is our volume is picking up," chair Shannon Whitfield said at the county's monthly meeting Thursday night. "We're having more animals come into the shelter, we're having more animal control calls and our increase in our community as far as our growth, I'm sure that's only going to continue."
Two weeks ago, Whitfield was authorized by the commission to conduct research on how the county's animal services could be re-organized. The commission made no decision on the plan at Thursday's meeting, with Whitfield saying the plan was "for review and conversation only."
The proposed plan would have a minimum of two animal control officers on duty eight hours a day, seven days a week, and Whitfield said that would require additional staffing for animal control and the shelter.
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The county already made one change a few weeks ago, naming an animal control officer the interim animal control manager, Whitfield said.
Reporting to the new animal control manager position would be four full-time animal control officers. The county would need to hire one more animal control officer for that department, Whitfield said. With more intakes at the shelter, the county would need to staff one manager and three kennel technicians seven days a week as well.
After-hours calls for animal control - incidents like dog bites and aggressive animals - have also been increasing, Whitfield said. The county currently staffs three animal control officers Monday through Friday, and they are on call for nights, weekends and holidays.
The new plan would define more clearly the reasons the on-call animal control officers would be called, as opposed to having them address the incident the next day. Reasons include: sick or injured animals that aren't owned; animal bites that break the skin of a human victim or if a specific species of wild animal known to be common carriers of rabies bite and break the skin of a dog or cat but aren't contained; and vicious animals creating a public threat.
Contributed photo by R. Barbee Photography / This is one of seven dogs rescued from a junk yard and ready to be adopted, according to the Walker County Animal Shelter website. Two have already been adopted, and one is still being socalized before it's ready to be homed. There are many animals ready to be adopted at Walker County's no-kill shelter, representatives said.In the proposed plan, for the new positions and added hours, personnel costs would increase from $520,130 to $785,682. Operating expenses would go up from $120,450 to $126,450, most of that being added fuel costs and increased spaying and neutering. The total for the new combined unit would go up from $640,580 to $912,132.
During Thursday's meeting, Commissioner Mark Askew said he would prefer to work out the department's organizational chart before the county addresses the new budget, saying he was concerned the program might not need a separate manager for both the animal control program and the animal shelter.
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When there's a call about dogs, it's usually a single dog, Whitfield said, but when there's a cat call, it's often up to a dozen feral cats causing problems. Whitfield wants to introduce a program to spay and neuter feral cats, then re-introduce them to where they were living previously.
Duties of the proposed animal services director position would be to establish an education program regarding county animal ordinances, humane treatment, animal behavior problems, animal adoption, community engagement through public speaking and providing information - with a focus on school children.
According to the commission's report on monthly statistics for April, Whitfield said, there were 91 dogs and 48 cats taken in. Adoptions and returns to owners for the month were 102 dogs and 50 cats. Two dogs and two cats were euthanized, he said, all due to illness.
Spring is an extremely busy time for the animal shelter, Walker County public relations director Joe Legge said in an email. Shelter director Emily Sadler, who assumed her role in 2019, was not available for comment.
The shelter's website explains that it is not animal control and directs people to call 911 to dispatch animal control for dog bites and aggressive animals. On the webpage for the animal shelter are photographs of the many dogs and cats available for adoption.
Lisa Dickerson worked at the shelter and left the job about a year and a half ago. She said in a phone interview she hasn't visited the shelter in a while but keeps up with its operation through friends who still work there. A good part of new management is that it's become a no-kill shelter, Dickerson said, and the shelter's management will even help dogs find homes outside the county.
"I like the work that they do, I just couldn't do it personally. I felt too bad for the animals," Dickerson said. "It's physically demanding, too. It's a lot of work to keep the shelter clean. We worked hard to keep it disease-free."
A change Dickerson said she would like to see is allowing volunteers to come into the shelter and walk the dogs. She said she would go back to volunteer, but that program was discontinued during the pandemic. Shelter employees are very busy, and she said they don't have time to exercise the animals.
More public awareness regarding spaying and neutering would be good too, and Dickerson said the proposed plan regarding feral cats would be a good idea. She also agreed public education on animal welfare would be helpful for the community as well.
Contact Andrew Wilkins at awilkins@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6659. Follow him on Twitter @tweetatwilkins.