Starting up an animal control facility?

[straw]

So I have recently moved to a small country town with no animal control. At all. I checked. If people can't/won't keep their pets and can't find anyone to take them, they are either left tied to the vet's porch or driven out into the boonies and dumped.

And I'm just wondering if anyone with experience in the shelter system knows what is involved in setting up animal control/a shelter for a region? I mean, I imagine you could either privately develop your own facility, hire staff, and then convince towns to give you a contract, OR you could convince a town (towns?) that they need an ACO and shelter, and then get them to fund you and the building of the facility and employees.

I mean, granted I'm a broke 20-something and wouldn't be able to do it (at least not for several years), I'm just curious.

 

[stardogs]

I know of several rural areas where a local kennel has a few runs designated for AC use and they have a contract for their care. Does the area you're in even HAVE animal control? If not, you'd probably need to lobby city or county council to get one before even attempting to make sure there was a facility. :\

 

[straw]

Nope, no animal control whatsoever.

 

[stardogs]

So then you'd likely have two options: open a 'humane society' type of nonprofit that is privately run or lobby for the formation of animal control (with or without its own facility vs a contract). Opening a nonprofit would probably be more straightforward and predictable than lobbying for a new government service, but more work in the long run.

 

[BostonBanker]

I was an ACO for a couple of years. Around here, animal control is generally run out of the town police offices, and they utilize existing shelters/kennels for boarding.

My contract was through the city, and I worked out of the PD. It was a part time job (12 hours a week, although I think it is now a 20 hour/week position). I think quite a few other cities/towns around here have ACOs who are on call but don't have set hours. The ACO phone ran through the PD, so if there was a call when I wasn't there that needed immediate attention, an officer would take care of it. Non-emergencies I got messages and dealt with when I was in. Some of what I did required me to call in the aid of the police officers - dealing with potentially hazardous wildlife (I know one ACO nearby who went through police training so she could carry her own weapon, but I'd call someone else to come dispatch it) or having to deliver tickets to places that made me nervous.

Animal pick-ups went to a local kennel that had contracts with several nearby towns. They would stay there for the required amount of time (5 days maybe? I forget.) that we would advertise them as found, and then if they were animals who were deemed (by me, although I'd call a friend who was a trainer in for a second opinion if needed) as able to be re-homed, I would bring them to the humane society. The one we got in who was never claimed and was NOT safe to place, I brought to the vet for euthanasia. Again, I think that vet had a contract with the city.

The job wasn't strictly (or even mostly) picking up loose animals. It was a lot of enforcing the town ordinances, lots of dealing with off-leash issues, neighbors with barking dogs, etc. Calls about "rabid animals" because they were out in the daytime. It was a terrible job for me, because I'm pretty non-confrontational and hated having to give out tickets and go to court over them and such.

I have a friend who runs a boarding kennel and rescue, and I know she has contracts with several towns to house their strays (and then she re-homes them if not claimed). I don't know of any towns in our area who have their own kennels for that sort of thing. Perhaps it is a regional thing, but I think they all just have contracts with existing kennels.

 

[Sparrow]

I am in a small town in Alaska. We have city animal control, but MANY people live outside of city limits, and there is none there. Rook is actually from a neglect situation that happened to be on the wrong side of the road for it to be in city limits, thus no animal control, and State Troopers wouldn't intervene. Some community members talked the owners into giving some dogs to a local sanctuary, and when they agreed we showed up with crates and loaded up 35 emaciated dogs filled with worms and mites.

Local rescues have been working for YEARS to no avail to get borough animal control here. We even finally got it on the ballot and voters approved it, but not the funding for it, so we've gotten no where. Not even for emergencies or abuse situations. It's awful. I know this post is no help, but all I can say is good luck.

Okay, what I can say is contact your local law enforcement and government officials and find out how those sorts of things are run. It varies so much by where you live, and they can better guide you. I hope you are able to get somewhere with it. If nothing else, you can start a rescue group and just have a bunch of people unofficially helping out the situation. That's what we're doing, and it's like running up a down escalator without animal control in existence.