‘Companion animals’ in crisis?

Ken Grissom

The political leaders of St. Martin Parish pride themselves on their ability to work together. That spirit of cooperation could be put to the test this spring when Parish Government and various other political entities hammer out a new agreement on what to do about stray and mistreated animals.

The parish has a state-of-the-art animal shelter but it is by all accounts understaffed. And there is some confusion over whose job it is to go forth and round up strays and nuisance animals and to enforce animal cruelty laws.

The agreement will be renegotiated this spring with particular attention to the duties of the parish’s sole animal control officer, now serving as a de facto parishwide dogcatcher.

“We are also going to look at what it costs us so far to run the shelter, what our future costs are going to be, and try to come up with a long-term game plan,” said Parish President Guy Cormier.

The picture is more complicated than just the issue — itself a nationwide problem — of too many dogs and cats running loose. This is a rural parish where people have horses and other livestock that sometimes stray and sometimes are mistreated. And culturally St. Martin remains a seat of the “sport” of dog fighting, which most people today would say is animal cruelty on the face of it and yet has its own darker side in the maltreatment and disposal of inferior fighters and the use of “bait dogs,” common lap dogs snatched out of their yards to get the pit bulls tasting blood.

People devoted to animals, people like Nancy Tabb Marcantel of Animal Rescue Foundation (ARF) and Hazel Theriot of the St. Martin Humane Society, say that for whatever reason, local government and local law enforcement just aren’t getting their arms around the problem.

“I get a lot of cruelty calls but I have no jurisdiction,” said Marcantel, whose “ARF-anage” in the north Breaux Bridge area shelters and adopts out hundreds of pets a year.

“I tell the people to call animal control, and if you don’t get any satisfaction from animal control, you need to call the sheriff,” she said. “It’s very low on the sheriff’s list of priorities, but you keep calling and you keep calling.”

“I know the sheriff is a good man,” said Hazel Theriot. “And if he thinks something needs to be done about it, he will do the right thing. The problem lies, I think, in the fact that it’s is not a priority in too many people’s lives — and politicians number one.”

Both women also question the amount of resources put into animal control.

“Everybody complains that they call and call and call animal control and get no answer,” said Theriot. “Well, you know how much she’s covering? She is covering a lot of territory by herself.”

“I don’t know how one person with an assistant can cover all the cruelty cases, all the stray cases and then maintenance of the dogs in the pound, trying to do adoptions or helping rescue groups pull dogs off of death row,” said Marcantel. “I can tell you from personal experience that’s an incredible amount of work.”

“With what they have to go up against in this parish — politics, numbers of animals, size of the parish — animal control is doing a good job,” said Breaux Bridge veterinarian Dr. Darryl Dahlquist.

In her year-end report to the Parish Council, Animal Control Coordinator Sara Glasgow said the parish animal shelter took in 1,074 dogs, 632 cats and sundry pigs, goats and horses in 2007. She or her assistant had to euthanize — put down, kill — 633 dogs and 563 cats. All this in addition to responding to animal control calls from Arnaudville to Stephensville. Often enough she comes home to find a boxed or tethered animal in her front yard that somebody has dropped off.

Some of the municipalities have taken the position that since they pay an annual fee to the animal shelter — from $14,821 for Breaux Bridge to $1,088 for Parks — they shouldn’t have to deal with picking up and holding strays. But the intergovernmental agreement signed by all the parties says each municipality has that responsibility itself. “It shall be the duty of the city or town, with regards to complaints originating within said city or town, to investigate and process said complaints and to further apprehend and transport any animals found in violation of the Rabies Control Ordinance to the (animal shelter) ... ,” the agreement reads.

“I don’t think it was ever intended for Parish Government to take the responsibility of animal control throughout the parish,” said Parish President Guy Cormier.

“Parish Government took it upon ourselves in early 2000 to come up with a plan to at least provide a shelter. Before that we didn’t have anything. We hired an animal control manager, or shelter manager, and she’s pretty much become the animal control officer for the parish. But the law says that the sheriff’s department is responsible for animal control in the parish.”

That is one of the issues Cormier said he hopes to address in the upcoming round of talks.

“Sheriff Theriot has said, look, whatever we need to do to fix the problem, we’re committed to fix it,” Cormier said.

Sheriff Ronny Theriot told the Teche News he does see Sara Glasgow, a P.O.S.T.-certified deputy, as the main agent for animal issues in the parish.

“Animal Control has the primary function on this thing,” Theriot said. “We do assist her when she calls for assistance. We work as a partnership. If she calls for us, we’re Johnny on the spot to help her do whatever needs to get done.”

The sheriff also said he does consider animal control a lower priority than crimes like robbery or assault but that doesn’t mean he ignores it.

“We’re not turning a blind eye to any crime whether it’s animal cruelty, drugs or crimes against property or anything else,” Theriot said.

“Anytime we have a complaint, we are going to investigate and we’re going to let the chips fall where they may.”