By the time Bailey, a white boxer, was spotted running down a street in May, he was feral and starving, with the shape of his ribs and back bones visible from underneath his skin.
Keri-Lyn Jakubs, who runs pet recovery nonprofit I Paw’d It Forward, said Bailey had been missing since April and had been located by a network of animal-loving volunteers.
Jakubs posted a video of Bailey’s capture on her group’s Facebook page, where the dog can be seen cautiously approaching a live trap that had been baited with chicken and beef brisket with liquid smoke added to keep its aroma pungent. The video shows Bailey giving in to hunger and entering the trap before it cuts to scenes of him reunited with his beaming family.
“It took our entire community to make that happen,” said Jakubs.
Over the summer, Clark County has relied more on volunteers like Jakubs after the county, in June, dismissed three animal control officers and two office staff over their alleged involvement in a workday gathering where alcohol was consumed.
“Our hats are off to the community,” said Clark County Community Development Director Mitch Nickolds, who oversees animal control and made the decision to fire the employees.
Over the summer, a time when pets go missing, the county has had just two animal control officers for a county of 656 square miles and nearly half a million people. Nickolds said there haven’t been any major incidents over the summer regarding animals, and he praised people like Jakubs for helping fill in while services had been reduced. He also said animal control will soon be restored and the county could potentially reshape the service for the better.
But members of the animal welfare community remain concerned by the light staffing of the service.
“Things are in crisis mode at animal control,” said Pat Vichas, the chair of Clark County’s Animal Control Advisory Board. “They’re responding to calls the best they can, but they can’t respond to them all in a timely manner.”
Vichas praised the county’s two animal control officers, but she said they’re not enough to respond to what are often quickly changing situations involving distressed animals.
Citizen dogcatchers
The Humane Society for Southwest Washington is where many lost or stray pets in Clark County end up. Stacey Graham, the group’s president, said that typically the shelter gets about two-thirds of its animals from residents and the rest from animal control.
But she said that during the summer months, animal control accounted for 15 percent, or 147, of the animals brought to the shelter. The public brought in 828 animals, she said. Graham also said that compared to last year, fewer animals were being brought in. She said that animal control brought in 42 percent fewer animals and there were 7 percent fewer from the public compared to last year.
She said that fewer animals are coming to the shelter because people increasingly see their pets as family members. She also said they’re easier to recover through social media platforms, such as Facebook and Nextdoor. She said that people will post online about a dog running loose and someone nearby will respond that they will pick up the dog.
“That is happening all the time. It used to be that it never happened,” she said. “There are so many options for people who lose their animals.”
She said that there are people, such as Jakubs, who have become so active in rescuing lost pets that the Humane Society gave them after-hours access to the shelter. She said they’ve also been given devices that read chips implanted in pets that contain information on their owners.
During a meeting of the Animal Control Advisory Board last month, Bob Bergquist, interim animal control manager, said that he’s had to prioritize calls for service and there’s been a delay in responding to some.
“We are pretty confident we are getting to the most serious calls,” he said.
After reducing animal control staff, Nickolds said that there have been some days when there has been no animal control on duty to give officers a break. The county has also used Critter Gitter, a Portland-based company it’s contracted with for after-hour calls. Nickolds said that members of the public also “stepped up,” such as Jakubs who provided support on the weekends and after hours.
Jakubs said that she’s run I Paw’d It Forward since 2012 and uses a large network of volunteers who rely on social media to locate lost animals. She said that in June, her group was set up to start receiving nonemergency calls from the county regarding lost animals.
“When you lose a family member, it does affect you, regardless if it is a four-legged family member or otherwise,” she said.
The busiest day
Jakubs said that she received about nine to 10 calls a week since June, with the Fourth of July week being particularly busy with animals spooked by fireworks.
Nickolds didn’t have data on animal control calls during the summer. But during a council time meeting held on July 18, Nickolds told the Clark County council that staffing was the same this Fourth of July as previous years with one officer available and support provided by an on-call service after hours. He said that there were eight or nine missing or stray pets, with a couple of calls regarding fatalities and aggressive dogs. The shelter reported getting 14 dogs that day said Nickolds.
“In conversations with the Humane Society, this was slower than the normal Fourth of July period than we previously experienced,” Nickolds told the council. He attributed the lack of activity to Vancouver’s ban on fireworks and people being aware of the reduction in animal control services.
Clark County has a contract with the city of Vancouver for animal control services. Nickolds said that the contract requires animal control to prioritize the city, which he said generates the most calls.
Jan Bader, city of Vancouver program and policy development manager, said the city hasn’t seen a spike over the summer in complaints regarding animal control being unresponsive from the public.
No substitute
Graham, as well as everyone interviewed for this story, said they weren’t aware of any major incident regarding animals that seriously jeopardize public safety during the summer. But Graham said that volunteers aren’t a substitute for animal control officers, who have the training and authority for hoarding and abuse cases.
In June, the county issued a statement indicating that it would restaff animal control by mid-August. Although the county hasn’t met that goal, Nickolds said he’s impressed with the number of applications the county has received. He said the county has hired a new full-time dispatcher, made an offer to an applicant for an officer position and is interviewing for a new manager to replace Paul Scarpelli, who was also fired in May.
“We anticipate being up to full staff in a matter of weeks,” said Nickolds.
Nickolds said that as the county hires new staff, animal control could prioritize areas like dog licensing, which he said could generate revenue for the county.
But Alice Heller, the president of the Clark County Executive Horse Council, said she’s also concerned about the sudden reduction in staff. She said that her group paid hundreds of dollars so that animal control officers could receive special training for handling situations with horses. Those officers are now gone, she said.
She said that winter is typically the time neglect cases involving horses come up. She said the council has foster and adoption programs for horses, but she said only animal control can remove animals from bad situations. There are over 30,000 horses in Clark County, according to county figures.
“I just don’t understand why they had to do it,” said Heller of the sudden firings.
Vichas, of the Animal Control Advisory Board, said that it will take time to get training for new officers and this is not the time to send them away for specialized training.
Nickolds said he’s looking into having the academy that provides training for animal control officers come to the area. When asked if he regretted firing so much of animal control staff, Nickolds said things could have been catastrophic had he gone in another direction.
“I followed the rules; I followed the best business practices,” he said. “I’m comfortable with the decision I’ve made.”
