The Marion County Board’s Community Relations Committee hopes to have some answers on how to proceed with housing stray and dangerous dogs by the full board meeting on January 28th.
The committee Thursday night split up some of the issues and agreed to recommend a contract to the full board with the Doggie Den in Centralia that will provide up to 15 runs at a cost of $15 per dog per day. The county will also have to pick up the cost of providing a rabies shot for each dog housed because it is not clear if most of the stray dogs have already had the rabies inoculation.
Committee member Dr. Michael Douglas is concerned they have already been housing dogs at another location without a plan of action.
“It’s a step one and step two tied together,” Douglas said. “We can’t be boarding dogs without some type of system of adoption. We’ve got a web page… but I don’t know if we have a formal system of adoption. There’s going to be some dogs that are not able to be adopted, and then who gets those dogs? I think we’ve already leapfrogged. We’re already doing something without approval of spending the dollars.”
Douglas says without a plan on how to handle the dogs after the seven-day period for owners to claim them, they will become expensive county pets.
Animal Control Officer Ken Ferguson said he began using Paws Here to house the dogs because he is required by state law to pick up the animals and needed somewhere to house them. The committee had earlier discussed using the facility, but there has been nothing finalized with the full board. Ferguson will look for rescue groups to take dogs after 14 days. Other committee members will try and meet with Salem and Centralia officials one more time to determine if there is a way for them to work together on animal control and an animal control facility.
Committee Chair Tracy Murray says if they have no commitment by the January 28th full board meeting, he feels attention should turn to developing a temporary facility to avoid daily fees and rabies inoculation. The committee has been trying to find a good location. It was noted some other county holding facilities are basically cages under a shelter or roof.
Marion County Board Chair Steve Whritenour says he would like to wait until next year to look at any permanent building.
