By Landon Olson

LOGAN -- An injured crow, cats chasing birds at a feeder and a request for traps are just a few of the incidents an animal control officer may have to deal with in a day.

"People call for strange things," said Logan City Police Officer Bill Barber.

Logan currently has three animal control officers, and they each take five or six calls a shift, said Officer Bryan Lay, who is in animal control. They may take as many as 12 or 13, or a few as zero, though.

Monday, out of 59 incidents reported to Logan City Police, 10 involved animals. Although an animal control officer may not respond initially due to availability, they usually take the case on a follow-up.

"They pretty much take all the stuff eventually," Barber said. "It seems they handle it pretty good."

A typical call for a stray takes about an hour, but if a person has been bitten, it can take up to two hours, Lay said.

The most common calls involve dogs or cats. Lay said animal control picks up 370-380 dogs a year, and about as many cats. The animals are taken to Cache Meadows Veterinary clinic if the animal cannot be returned to its owner.

"We actually pick up a lot more and take them home," Lay said.

It's not always dogs or cats the officers have to deal with, though. He said they sometimes get calls for moose, bobcats or cougars that wander into town. They also deal with "a lot of rock chucks," snakes and "whatever animal you'd think someone could have as pets," including rabbits, iguanas, guinea pigs and parrots, he said.

"You never know what you're going to go on," Lay said. "It's different every day. It's not like a desk job."

Barber said there are also requests for traps. Citizens can get live-traps to catch cats and other animals, and then have animal control pick them up, he said.

In addition to responding to calls, Lay said quite a bit of time is spent in rescue and adoption of animals that have been picked up.

"You've got to do something with them," he said.

An attempt to adopt the animals out, through local organizations or places like PETsMART, is made and is usually quite successful, Lay said.

"We just about rescued everything in the pound that was adoptable," he said about last year's efforts.

Despite the best attempts by animal control officers, Lay said sometimes there is an injured animal nothing can be done for and it must be euthanized.

"The hardest part is going out there and putting one to sleep," he said.

To reduce the problem of pets running lose, Barber said people just need to have better control of their animals, or at least have tags in case a pet is picked up.

If an animal is lost, the owner needs to check with police to see if it has been found, Lay said.

Even if people take more responsibility in confining their pets, Lay said he doesn't expect animal control to be lacking any calls in the future.

"I think because Logan is growing, the work load is pretty secure for the future," he said.

NW
TJ

We've published stories since 1998. We've saved them all. Click the link below to take you to the Archive home page. We have no search engine on the archive, so if you're looking for a particular story, you'll need to search month by month or use keywords from the story in Google.com