Ivy Wood sees it too often. People want to help when they find stray or abandoned dogs, but don’t know where to turn or don’t have the knowledge and experience to handle the animals.
They end up taking in one dog, then a couple of more and, before long, they are hoarding animals in an unregistered rescue, Wood said.
“They really don’t have the resources and don’t know what to do when they become overwhelmed,” said Wood, the manager of the Garland County Humane Society for the last 11 years.
The death of a 15-year-old girl who was attacked by a pack of dogs at a home in Saline County has people who run rescues and work with humane societies calling for local government and the state to tackle several larger issues: The lack of regulation on pets in large swaths of the state and the proliferation of pop-up rescues taking in stray animals, but lacking the knowledge or experience to deal with them.
“Rescuers have been begging for help for situations like this for years,” said Preston Noland with Southern Hearts Rescue in Bauxite.
Saline County is hosting a meeting at 6 p.m. Monday at Benton High School to discuss the state of animal control in unincorporated parts of the county. Saline County Judge Matt Brumley did not return several messages seeking comment about the town hall.
Jennifer Renee Bridges of Jak’s Second Chance Rescue in Cabot met with some of Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders’ staff Wednesday. The meeting, by coincidence, took place around the same time the 911 call reporting the attack in Saline County took place.
Bridges wouldn’t say what specifically the meeting covered.
“So right now we’re not willing to discuss the content of what we’re working on because we don’t want people to lobby against it before it even gets off the ground,” Bridges told the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. “But the reason we were there has everything to do with the exact kind of issues that led to (the teen’s) death.”
A spokesman for Sanders said staff meet with constituents all the time to discuss a variety of issues and hear from Arkansans all over the state.
The teen died June 11, after a pack of dogs attacked her inside a fenced in area next to a home in rural Alexander. Benton Animal Services took 14 of the dogs and put them down after the attack. Several rescues stepped in and housed some of the remaining animals.
The Saline County Sheriff’s Office said the attack is under investigation.
“The property was attempting to be some sort of rehab shelter. They were taking in dogs and were attempting to be a shelter,” said Matt Thibault, spokesman, for city of Benton.
Animal control offices in Arkansas are a patchwork affair. Saline County has no shelter and no animal control office. The city of Benton, the largest municipality in the county, handles some complaints and rescues in the county. About 20 minutes away, both Pulaski County and Little Rock offer animal services to constituents.
On the west side of Saline County is Garland County, which contracts with Hot Springs Animal Control to handle pickup and removal of strays and vicious animals, with some limitations. And, depending upon the size of the animal control office, the services it offers.
That’s not uncommon across Arkansas, where not every county has access to animal service professionals. It’s a situation that leaves little recourse if there’s someone hoarding animals or little protection and help for people who try to assist strays and residents who help them.
And, in some cases, the burden falls on private rescue operations, some run by volunteers and many of which say the volume of animals needing help has overwhelmed them. There’s no way to track how many informal and off-the-books rescues exist in homes in Arkansas.
But, in some of those cases, you run into people who end up hoarding animals, said Debbie Powell, with the Humane Society of Pulaski County. It’s long been a problem in Saline County, said Powell, who lives there.
“When you get into areas where the laws are loosey goosey … they get into situations where they get more animals than they can take care of,” Powell said. “I could see how this could happen, especially in a situation that’s unchecked.”
Many people working with humane societies in the state have stories about rescuing multiple animals from such situations and having to scramble to find homes or places willing to take cats and dogs.
Noland said animal control is needed in many rural areas, including Saline County, calling it a public health issue.
“What do you do when someone dumps a bunch of animals on you?” Noland said. “When there is no animal control or shelter in the area? When those animals won’t leave?”
For Powell and Wood, a good first step is enacting and enforcing spay and neuter laws, as well as limiting the number of animals allowed at a home. Powell compared such regulations to DUI laws, with the idea that harsher penalties could get people to realize that there’s a problem and alleviate the issue.
“It cost something,” Powell said. “Why can’t they do the same thing with animal abusers? Make it difficult.”
Putting into place pet license laws in counties where they don’t currently exist would also help curb animal hoarding by giving officials another way to deal with pop-up rescues, Wood said.
These ideas, of course, run into money, something many rescues, counties and cities are short on. That’s a realization not lost on the people who work in animal services.
“I don’t know what else to do at this point,” Bridges said. “We’re doing the best we can. Every rescue is full.”
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Information for this report was provided by Harley Walls of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.
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