The Durango Police Department and the La Plata County Sheriff’s Office have assumed animal control operations within the city and county, taking over services previously handled by La Plata County Humane Society.
To date, the sheriff’s office has hired two former humane society animal control employees. Deputies have been performing animal control duties since Jan. 1 while the new personnel were trained, Lt. Zach Farnam said.
“We did hire two previous animal control officers from (the Human Society),” he said. “We have gone through the onboarding and initial training. They are actively already working and taking calls on their own.”
DPD spokeswoman Amanda Garrison said the department has hired one animal control ranger, who was formerly employed at the humane society, and is in the process of hiring another ranger. Hiring and training the new rangers began in January, when DPD officially took over animal control duties.
Garrison said the animal control officers for the police department will serve a similar role assisting with ranger duties in addition to animal control responsibilities.
“They are rangers, but they have a primary focus on animal control calls,” Garrison said.
Officers and open space rangers shared animal control calls while the animal control personnel completed the department’s onboarding process.
Farnam said training animal control officers on sheriff’s office-specific protocols took several weeks. However, both employees were able to perform their duties independently by late January and have been working on their own since. They respond to roughly one to two animal calls per day, though that number can fluctuate.
“Sometimes you might have five animal calls, and the next day you might have zero animal calls,” he said.
The sheriff’s office animal control personnel work four 10-hour shifts per week and rotate to ensure at least one officer is on duty every day of the week, Farnam said. In addition to animal-specific calls, they accompany deputies on calls where animals are present or additional crew is needed.
“We are using them for some other collateral duties too, which has been beneficial to us,” he said. “For instance, we arrested a drunk driver and there was a dog in the car. They may assist us in the animal capacity, but we’re using them for other things. They’ve helped with lockdown drills. They’ve helped with evictions.”
Farnam said incorporating animal control operations into the sheriff’s office has created new opportunities for both animal control personnel and other employees.
“We’re going to use this as kind of a steppingstone,” he said. “If they (animal control) say, ‘I think I want to go be a cop, that seems fun,’ it’s an avenue to grow their career. Also, if we had a jail deputy that says, ‘I don’t know if I want to be a full-on deputy, but I would like to go out and help the community,’ that would be an avenue to further their career as well.”
sedmondson@durangoherald.com
