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Highlands Today

Animal Control Improvements Are Noticeable

Kathy Waters/Highlands Today

Caretaker Brandon Owens walks a 100-pound, 15-year-old, bull dog/mastiff mixed breed at Highlands County Animal Control on Friday. The county department is in the midst of making improvements to the facility.

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By Jim  Konkoly | Highlands Today

Published: January 20, 2008

SEBRING — Nobody at Highlands County Animal Control knows how old Harley is.

The five staff members do know that this old, slow, sway-backed horse is well beyond 20 years old. And they know the veterinarian's prognosis – while Harley can't run anymore he can sometimes get up to a fast walk.

This elderly horse spends his days in a six-acre pasture, and usually speeds up when he's called in for his feed by John Smith, a native of Kent, England, who is the supervisor of the animal control officers.

"Harley was here when I came," said former sheriff's deputy and Fish & Game warden Darryl Scott, who will complete his first year as director of county animal control in February.

"Harley cannot be adopted, he's too old," Scott said. "But he's going to stay here and live out the rest of the days."

This gentle horse tends to stay off by himself in the far corner of the pasture, away from the Animal Control building and staff.

"But he'll come to you, and usually he'll come to Ralph Smith faster than he will to anybody else," Scott said.

The fence around the pasture is not up to standards, Scott said, and Harley could jump it if he really wanted to.

"Any horse could," Scott said. "But he doesn't want to. And getting a better fence is one of the things we're working on."

Facilities Improvements Due Soon

Visitors to Animal Control, on Haywood-Taylor Boulevard near the race track and the regional airport, are surprised at the changes going on there now.

With $150,000 allocated by the county commissioners to improve facilities this year, and both student and adults volunteering their time to help the staff, Scott is overseeing a makeover of the buildings and grounds.

County Administrator Carl Cool asked for, and got from the county commissioners, $150,000 added to the Animal Control budget for new facilities this year.

"We are becoming better equipped and trained, and we're working on major facilities improvements," Scott said. "We're working toward having a place out here that anybody in Highlands County would be proud of. That's our goal."

Not much of the $150,000 has been spent yet, but it will be soon. Rick Helms, the assistant county administrator, is overseeing Scott's building plans and helping usher the projects through the sometimes complex county bidding procedure.

The very first improvement came free, courtesy of the Highlands County Regional Airport Authority, which owns the land on which Animal Control is located and rents it to the county for free. Airport officials agreed to a new lease which expanded Animal Control's land from 9 acres to just over 12 acres.

The new lease also gave fouracres of tangled thickets back to the airport and added seven good, open acres which will be converted into a complex of large- and small-animal pens and shelters.

In New Facilities, Cats First, Then The Dogs

The worst of the facilities, the cat pens, will be replaced before new pens are built for the dogs, Scott said.

"We have only three pens for the cats," said Smith, who has been a Highlands County animal control officer for five years. "One has all the feral cats, one has all the adult (domestic) cats up for adoption, and one has all the kittens."

Pat Pablo, the office manager at Animal Control, found statistics to help paint a picture of the cats' crowded pens. On average, the agency takes in between 100 to 150 cats per month. About 70 percent are feral or wild cats, which can't be adopted and have to be euthanized.

Of the remaining 30 percent, most eventually have to be "put down" because there's no room with a steady stream of new homeless cats coming in each month.

In December, the last month with complete statistics, Animal Control took in 149 cats. Only two were adopted.

"The cat pens are terrible, they're shameful," Scott said. Besides overcrowding, the open-air pens also expose the cats to the summer heat and the occasional winter cold spells.

"They," Scott said, referring to the cats and kittens held in the current cat cages, "are in cat hell. There's no other way to say it. That's why the brand new cat pens are planned before we change the dog pens."

So far, Scott said, new fences have been put up. He's working on plans to build new cow pens and covered animal pens for livestock.

Livestock taken in at Animal Control includes poultry, goats, sheep, rabbits and hogs, Scott said. These pens have to come first, he said, "because we are keeping the hogs in a horse trailer."

Plans for New Cat Facility in Process

In the near future, Scott said, "we hope to start the foundation for the new cat facility, and with that we'll probably finish using up the whole $150,000 for this (fiscal) year."

In the next fiscal year (2008-09, starting Oct. 1), Scott said, he hopes to secure more facilities money to build new dog pens and an adoption center, where people can spend time alone with dogs or cats which they're thinking about adopting.

"Not enough people know that we adopt animals here," Scott said. "But we're getting the word out that we do adopt animals and our officers are becoming better (at promoting adoptions)."

Numbers can say whatever one wants them to say. For example, Scott could, but does not, say that dog adoptions have more than doubled under his tenure. That is true, as far as it goes. But the complete picture is that dog adoptions doubled in December 2007 to 13, compared to the six dog adoptions in December 2006.

Pablo provided the following statistics for a comparison:

u In December 2006, Animal Control took in 106 dogs and adopted six out; and took in 109 cats and adopted four out.

u In December 2007, the agency took in 116 dogs and adopted 13 out; while 149 cats came in and only two left for adopted homes.

Smith said the current five-person staff, about to be expanded with a sixth person, is much happier because the extra money in the budget for equipment and facilities is allowing them to do their jobs more efficiently.

"We're happier because we're better equipped," Smith said. In addition to new uniforms and new flashlights, each of the three animal control officers received a new (not brand new, but newer used model) truck for their patrols, he said.

Beefing Up Enforcement

On Tuesday, Brandon Owens, Animal Control's lone groundskeeper, will be among the 10 finalists – from the original field of 70 job applicants – who will be interviewed to fill the opening for a third animal control officer.

Whether Owens or another candidate gets the officer's job, staffing will go up to three full-time animal control officers, with Smith, the supervisor, also working as a field officer, as well as Scott, who also goes out on the road to work as an officer.

With more training in the past year, the five (including Scott and Smith) animal control field officers will be citing more people for animal cruelty, abuse and neglect prosecutions. All five of the small-animal veterinary practices in the county are working with Scott to improve those prosecutions, as well as to improve veterinary care at the county's animal shelter.

A year ago, only one of the animal control officers had legal authority to issue a citation. Now, all five officers have completed the Florida Animal Control Officers certification program, which allows them to go on private property if they have probable cause that an offense against an animal has been committed.

While facilities take up much of the Animal Control staff's time, they still have to deal with the flood of animals coming in, especially with the sheriff's marijuana grow house busts continuing.

Grow-House Animals Still Coming In

"The influx of animals (confiscated) from the grow houses has slowed, but it hasn't been turned off completely," Scott said. That means that in addition to the 200 to 250 dogs and cats taken in every month, and the stray horses, hogs, sheep and sheep that wander off a farm, Animal Control must sometimes care for what amounts to a small zoo.

"We have had hogs and horses, chickens and pigeons, goats, sheep – and from those confiscated sheep, seven lambs were born in our pens – and at least one exotic bird," Scott said of the grow-house animal confiscations.

All told, he said, the number of animals confiscated at marijuana grow-house bust sites during the past year "is in the low hundreds for sure, probably somewhere between 200 to 300."

In the end, Scott said, it will take time to build Animal Control facilities up to first-class standards. "You have to keep doing what you can," he said. "We try to keep making it better."

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