LUBBOCK, Texas (KCBD) – As the warmer temperatures settle in for the summer, Lubbock residents suffer from an uptick in dog bites and report seeing more aggressive dogs. Lubbock Animal Services is reminding people what to do if they’re bitten, while a Lubbock mom claims the agency didn’t respond quick enough in an attack on her daughter.
Laura Delcambre says her eight-year-old daughter was traumatized when she was bitten by a family dog last week. She says the dog, who belonged to her brother-in-law, had been in the family for years and they aren’t sure what happened.
“I was traumatized. I’ve been injured by animals myself. But, when you’re trying to keep something from hurting your child and you can’t stop it, it’s very scary,” Delcambre said. “So, I just felt like maybe they shouldn’t be traumatizing parents and children who’ve been bitten by animals.”
That’s what Delcambre claims Lubbock Animal Services did in the aftermath. She says an officer filed a bite report while her daughter was in the hospital, about an hour after the attack. LAS then went to their home to try to make contact with the owner, to bring the dog to the shelter for quarantine. When the dog’s owner wasn’t home, the agency left a door tag and waited for him to give them a call.
“Policy says we need to pick up the animal or have it in quarantine as quickly as possible. So, if someone gets bit and they’re at a medical facility and no one’s home to give us access to the dog, we typically give them some time to get that in, whether it’s noon the next day, 5 p. m. the next day, we kind of allow that,” Steven Greene, the director of LAS, said.
Greene is also the Local Rabies Control Authority. He says responding to these situations quickly is essential, because these dogs can pass rabies to humans, which could lead to death.
Greene says state law requires an animal control officer to investigate every bite in city limits. According to city ordinance, the animal must also be quarantined for 10 days, whether at LAS, a vet clinic or, in some cases, the owner’s home.
“It’s our responsibility to make sure the animal is quarantined and if we’re able to pick it up at the time of the bite, we do,” Greene said. “So, the owner has to sign a quarantine waver. Obviously, if it’s a dog that we don’t know the owner on, we’re going to go ahead and pick it up and bring it in.”
Greene says LAS tries to help get animals into quarantine, but ultimately it’s the owners responsibility to do so within 24 hours, or they will face fines. Delcambre says she tried to call to get LAS to pick up the dog, but her calls weren’t returned.
“I called when we got home from the hospital and they did not return my call. I called six times the next day throughout the day, trying to get them to come and pick the dog up and left messages. They never returned my calls, let me know what was going on or why they hadn’t come to pick up the dog,” she said.
Greene says sometimes it can take a few hours to respond, especially if field officers are out working other cases.
“There’s also times when people call and say, well, I’ve left 15 messages and nobody’s called you back. We document those phone calls when we do call somebody back, we’ll say we left a voice message or didn’t receive an answer,” Greene said. “So, a lot of times people are throwing accusations out there, but you know we document pretty much what we do.”
Delcambre says a supervisor told her she could bring the dog to LAS, but she didn’t feel it was her job.
“We all pay taxes to support these, to support these services…they don’t come in and do my job for me if I can’t make it,” she said. “So, I didn’t feel like it was right for them to say, well, you can bring the dog in anytime. Sure, I’m really anxious to put a vicious dog in my car that wants to attack me.”
According to Delcambre, Lubbock Animal Services picked up the dog 23 hours after the attack.
If bitten by a dog, Greene says to first get to safety. Then call 911 or Lubbock Animal Services. The website instructs to “seek emergency care if a bite is severe or wash with soap and water if minor. A bite is considered a scratch or bite that breaks the skin. Try to contain the animal for Animal Services. If the family pet bites, it still must be reported to Animal Services. If the animal cannot be contained, try to keep the animal under observation or locate its owner until Animal Services arrives.”
Officers will help fill out a bite report when they respond to a scene. Medical facilities are also required to contact LAS to do a bite report, so Greene encourages victims to tell medical employees if they’ve already completed a report.
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