It’s not unusual to see stray animals in Marshall and Harrison County — and calls to the Marshall Police Animal Control division are common.
Several readers have contacted the News Messenger in recent months regarding their personal stories and concerns about dealing with stray animals in the area.
Though the number of reported animal bites in Marshall is low, Marshall Police Department Lt. Len Ames said that the department’s animal control division does receive calls from community members, usually joggers and homeowners on the outskirts of town, who are having issues with strays.
The Problem
According to Ames, who works with the Animal Control division, the problem with strays in Marshall and Harrison County is a multifaceted one.
It is a combination of a low number of staff, limited resources and the reality of finding animals that can move long distances before officers arrive.
“It’s a lot easier to answer a call about a dead animal in the road, because by the time we get there that animal is still there,” Ames said, “When we get a call about a stray or strays, often times we send an officer out to the site and that animal is no longer in the area.”
Ames said that Marshall currently employs three animal control officers, with one person required to stay at the shelter when it is open, seven days a week.
“We are not staffed to patrol,” Ames said.
Mandy Smith, with the Friends of Marshall Animals, said that even with the new facility that the brand new Pet Adoption Center offers, there is simply not enough space to meet the demand for animals in Harrison County.
“We have been full up almost since we opened,” Smith said, “Right now we are using our kennels that usually have the dogs space to go inside and outside, and we are leaving the door down to put two dogs in each space, and we are still full.”
Smith’s husband, Ed Smith, who also works with FOMA, said that the new facility was not built to house the number of animals needed in Harrison County and Marshall, with original estimates by Shelter Planners of America suggesting a shelter double the size of the new one.
“A shelter won’t fix this problem though, we couldn’t build a shelter big enough to fix this, we have to solve this problem a different way,” Ed Smith said.
Another issue faced by the Animal Control Division and Marshall Pet Adoption Center is low funding, with Mandy Smith stating that the shelter works with a $142,000 annual budget — meaning that per person, the county spends less than $2.10 on animal control, based on the 2020 Census and Harrison County’s population of 68,839.
According to the Humane Society of the United States, the average amount per person per county is $10 spent on animal control per year.
“When we go to conferences and meet with individuals about our shelter, I will tell them what our budget is and they laugh, because they think I am joking,” Smith said.
The Solution
Smith said that the Friends of Marshall Animals are working to address the problem with a robust volunteer program, with community members tasked with picking up strays, caring for the animals in the shelter, fostering out animals and even preparing a number of adoptable animals for transport to shelters up north.
“The shelters up north, they don’t have a problem with too many animals, they have had programs in place for years that prevent that, so they are now looking for adoptable pets, so we ship a number of our animals to them,” Smith said.
She said that northern shelters have spay and neuter clinics set up to ensure every pet adopted out of a shelter is already fixed, which helps cut down drastically on the stray animal population.
“The biggest thing people can do to help this problem is to get their animals spayed and neutered,” Smith said, “I can’t tell you how many times people bring in more than one litter of puppies to the shelter, it’s heart breaking, all of these animals need to be taken care of and find homes.”
The Marshall Pet Adoption Center recently announced plans to open a full spay and neuter clinic inside the facility, which was funded by FOMA member Alera Waite’s GoFundMe drive.
Smith said that the clinic is not ready to open yet, but that when it does it will offer low or no-cost spay and neuter options to community members who are looking to fix their animals.
“The last thing left to do then is for people to come and take advantage of the program, we can make it available and we can make it cheap, but people have to use it,” Smith said.
This is where an additional education program, planned by the Friends of Marshall Animals, will come in to play.
Ames said that an important element of animal control is educating the public of local ordinances, animal safety and the importance of fixing their pets when it comes to public health and safety.
“It really is a quality of life issue,” Ames said.
Ames also added that an additional animal control officer to assist with the task at hand would be beneficial, which Smith saying that it is desperately needed at the shelter.
“There are just some things that an animal control officer can do that volunteers simply can’t,” Smith said.
She added that additional funding, to help these programs get off of the ground, and assist the volunteers and shelter staff with running the day to day operations would go a long way in addressing the issue of stray animals in town.
“We need more funds to address this problem, we need more officers and help at the shelter and we need more money to help the people who want to make a change get it done,” she said.
