Working in the city of Clearlake, I find myself frequently frustrated by our animal control situation.
The problem is that the City of Clearlake decided to create its own animal control instead of keeping its contract with the County of Lake.
The city has one animal control officer from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday. That means if you have a loose dog or any other animal control issue in the City of Clearlake, it better happen between 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday or you are out of luck. Even if you do have an issue between 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday, you may or may not get a response. I work in the animal health care industry and frequently have people calling me asking me what to do with a stray animal. If they live in the City of Clearlake, I tell them to call Clearlake Animal Control, which goes through the Clearlake Police Department dispatch.
Dozens of times I have had people call me back either saying that animal control won”t help or that they can bring the stray animal in but it will cost the person $80 to turn it in. Someone stopped in several weeks ago with a kitten that was in the bushes by a grocery store. The good samaritan took it to the animal control/ police station and was told they would take it if she paid $80.
Another, even bigger problem is if you have an issue on the weekend. If you call the police department, which oversees animal control, you are told that there is no service and it”s not their problem. Last Saturday I had two nice ladies with wheelchairs bring in a mid-sized puppy that was wandering in traffic on Lakeshore.
They said they called animal control and were told there was nothing they could do and to just let the dog run. I called the number I had, and talked to the police dispatcher. She was polite, and said an officer would come by to pick up the puppy. He arrived to tell me he would not take the dog and that their kennels were full of vicious dogs.
They said we should tell people to just let the dog be unless we wanted to take care of it. Why are animals treated this way? What happens to these animals?
All I wanted to do was get the dog off the street so it wouldn”t cause an accident. I think the people of Clearlake deserve some answers and solutions.
Maia Hoyt
Clearlake
