Clearlake >> For years stray animals have been roaming the streets of Clearlake, but when the Clayton Fire hit, a problem went from bad to worse. Hundreds of residents were forced to flee their homes, leaving pets behind. In the ensuring chaos, many of those pets escaped and began to wander the streets, only adding to an issue some fear will never be resolved.
Citizens like Melinda Young are doing all they can to help ease the burden these stray animals have on the city. Two years ago she began buying materials to build dog houses, which Mendo Mill sold to her at a reduced rate. She hauled the materials over to the Lower Lake High School woodshop class, where students constructed the structures.
Once completed, Young gave the houses away for free to anyone who needed them. She would drive around town, and when she spotted a dog in need of shelter, she’d approach the owner to inquire whether they wanted a house for their pet. She leveled no blame and asked no further questions. She only wanted to help the dogs.
“There’s just this great need over here,” she said. “There’s so many animals that are suffering.”
The City of Clearlake has a solo animal control officer to handle all of the strays across the entire community. It’s an impossible task for one person, Young pointed out, even if that person were the best in the business. While Clearlake has a list of laws pet owners must follow, Young feels that many are skirting them, and able to do so because there’s no enforcement.
Owners must provide food and clean water for their dogs daily, dogs cannot be tied to a stationary object for more than three hours, dogs must have access to shelter and protection from the weather — these are all laws concerning dogs in the city of Clearlake. They may seem like common sense ordinances, but Young claimed that while there are certainly those who take care of their pets, there are too many who do not.
“This has gone on for years, these are the laws and they’re not being followed,” she said. “These owners that are breaking the law and not taking care of their animals, they’re getting away with it.”
In September 2015, the Clearlake City Council made the decision to move all animal control services in-house after the Kelseyville SPCA terminated the city’s contract. Young believes this has only exacerbated the problem — there is less shelter for animals, and a steep fee when a citizen turns a dog in to the city, she said.
So Young continued acquiring materials for dog houses, but then Lower Lake High School cut their woodshop class, and Young had to find someone else willing to build the dog houses. John Moorhead, woodshop teacher at Clear Lake High School in Lakeport, was the only one willing, she said.
Over the last several months, Moorhead and his students have made two dog houses for Clearlake citizens. He wishes he had the time to build ten. “It’s the right thing to do. We’ve had a number of teachers and students here who were affected by the fire,” he said. “We just want to help out.”
Since dog houses are fairly basic when it comes to design and construction, being nothing more than a box, they’re the perfect project for many of his students. In fact, building a dog house is basically a rite of passage in woodworking. It was even Moorhead’s first paid job.
He wanted to teach his students the value of doing something for nothing, of being generous for generosity’s sake. “There’s enough greed in the world. It’s okay to do something that helps, it doesn’t happen enough,” Moorhead said. “I’m firmly aligned with kindness. You can’t save the whole world but you can save little pieces of it”
But the two dog houses are not nearly enough to shelter the many animals who need it. Materials have been sitting at Young’s house for months, and all she requires is someone to build the structures. Those who volunteer need only donate their time.
Anyone who would like to become involved in Young’s endeavor can contact her at 995-2342.
Jennifer Gruenke can be reached at 900-2019.
