Rural resident shoots stray dogs

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By Bobbi Mlynar (Contact)

Thursday, July 17, 2008

A rural Lyon County man said he has shot five dogs during the past week, and he’s not happy about it.

“I hate to shoot ’em, too, but what do you do?” he said.

The man, who will not be identified, said that in recent weeks he has noticed a significant increase in the number of stray dogs prowling in his rural neighborhood.

“Dog food’s getting high ... and they’re not going to be able to feed ’em so they bring them out to the country and they dump them out,” he said.

“These three that we just got rid of were just as wild as can be. You couldn’t even get close to them. They’ve been shot at and ran around. They just are scared to death and they don’t have nothing to eat.”

After talking with others in the area, the man learned that a neighbor had seen the animals on his property, trying to find food around his cattle.

“They were eating minerals out of that mineral feeder,” the man said. “They were that hungry. ... It’s just one of them deals, sooner or later they’re going to be skin and bones.”

Stray dogs also chase the cattle and other livestock, creating the risk of injury or, at a minimum, weight loss on animals that cost money to fatten.

The man has nothing against dogs. He and his family have a small house dog that sometimes accompanies him in the tractor cab as he works the fields. That pet was one of the reasons he shot the three dogs on Sunday.

They were large and unfriendly, and one growled menacingly. The man was fearful of allowing his daughter out to play in the yard, and wouldn’t allow their pet to go outside, either.

“If something happened to her that little girl would be heartbroke to death,” he said.

He was angry at the pet owners who dump out dogs and cats without regard to their futures.

“I just hate it,” he said. “Take care of them or take them and have them done away with, you know? ... It’s gonna get worse. I know it is.”

MiChielle Cooper, director of the H. Dale Buck Fund, agreed with the man about people who dump pets though she took adamant exception to the way he solved the problem.

“There’s absolutely no excuse for it, not when we have a taxpayer-supported shelter,” Cooper said.

“(The discarded pets) are either going to become wild animal bait or die a horrible death of starvation or dehydration. I just can’t imagine what people are thinking of. Sometimes you just want to give them the V8 thump right in the middle of their forehead.”

The city and the county both have animal control officers to pick up stray animals and bring them to the city shelter, 1216 Hatcher St., or to the Emporia Veterinary Hospital at 710 Anderson St., she said.

“That at least gets them picked up, de-wormed, food, shelter, gets ’em vaccinations, and then Peggy at the shelter always calls us,” Cooper said.

The Buck Fund volunteers and shelter manager Peggy Derrick work together as they try to find foster or permanent homes for animals brought to the shelter or picked up by animal control officers.

Local volunteers have connections with animal-rescue organizations in a five-state area, and keep in regular touch by sending photos of animals in the local shelter to see if there is a demand for that animal in another area, or at least a foster home willing to keep an animal temporarily. All of those organizations abide by state regulations for animal health, are licensed to operate, and verified as non-profit.

“Now that we have got transportation connections, it’s just a huge network of volunteers,” she said.

And more volunteers are needed. Though the number of foster homes for pets has risen, more are needed to take care of the animals when permanent homes are not found readily.

A volunteer is needed to coordinate e-mailing out photos of available animals at the shelter and in foster homes, and to stop in at the shelter to get to know them and their habits, such as aggression issues, illnesses and other idiosyncrasies. The computer work could be done at home, and the brief time spent at the shelter is pleasant.

“You’re not the one cleaning out the pens and maybe seeing them going back to the euthanasia room,” she said.

Cooper encouraged potential volunteers to talk with Derrick to see if they could help at the animal shelter.

Donations and memorial donations also are needed to help finance the medical treatments, food, and other needs of the animals because of the dramatic increase in numbers during the past few years.

“In 2007, we handled a total of 217 animals,” Cooper said, “and 56 of those came from the animal shelter. Already we’re over 220 animals and 103 of them came from the Emporia Animal Shelter.”

The Buck Fund also has more than doubled its spending in the budget area that eventually could be the solution to the problem of unwanted pets: spaying and neutering.

Spending went from $30,000 in 2006 to $64,000 for the Fund’s spay-neuter program.

“I fully expect 2008 to be well over that, just with what we’ve got incoming,” Cooper said.

Grants and donations have helped defray the costs of the surgeries that cost approximately $100 to $130 to perform.

Cooper believes it could be helpful for the city to raise its licensing fee for unspayed and unneutered pets to help finance expenses associated with unwanted pets.

“It would be a huge revenue producer for the city, and maybe they would eventually be able to funnel that money into a spay-neuter room at the animal shelter,” Cooper said.