Dog Warden Advisory Committee submits final recommendations to commissioners

Lucas County Dog Warden Julie Lyle, right, and her assistant, Jessica Poupard, at the meeting Tuesday.

Steve Serchuk, chairman of the Lucas County Dog Warden Advisory Committee, presented the final report to the county commissioners at an open meeting.

“It will be up to the county commissioners, the auditor, and the Lucas County dog warden and her staff to translate that vision into reality,” Mr. Serchuk said.

Commissioners President Pete Gerken thanked the dog committee for its two years of work, and said the county would try to enact many of the new recommendations.

“Realistically we can do a lot of these,” Mr. Gerken said after the meeting. “We can do the low-hanging fruit stuff pretty quickly.”

Lucas County Dog Warden Julie Lyle, right, and her assistant, Jessica Poupard, at the meeting Tuesday.

The 15 recommendations include:

• Undertaking a vigorous program of pound volunteers.

• Upgrading the dog pound facility.

• Having better collection, retrieval, and sharing of dog statistics.

• Reducing the number of dog bites.

• Having better public safety education.

• Improvement in returning dogs to owners.

• Extending the pound's hours to the public.

• Having dog warden deputies work between 4 and 9 p.m.

• Increasing the number of dogs that are licensed.

• Charging higher license fees for dogs that aren't spayed or neutered.

• Introducing better animal care and enrichment at the pound.

• Improving veterinary services.

• Creating a bigger network of outside rescue groups to accept impounded dogs.

• Pushing for changes to local and state dog-related legislation.

• Finding more funding sources.

The 12-member panel developed these latest recommendations, as well as nine previous ones, between March, 2009 and December. The group plans to wind down its activity next month.