Blenheim’s dog problems—loose dogs, biting dogs, unlicensed dogs, unvaccinated dogs—are now Esperance’s—though really, they’re everywhere, supervisors heard—again—Friday.
“We need help,” said Joe Durma, DCO for five towns, including Esperance, passing around photographs of dogs he’s been struggling to help, even as another case—a dog biting people—“Just keeps going on and on and on,” said Supervisor Earl VanWormer.
“People are getting bit and there doesn’t seem to be any resolution,’ Mr. VanWormer said.
It was April. And May, And June 2023 that Blenheim was dealing with much the same situation and Supervisor Don Airey called for a county-wide dog control law.
Mr. Airey’s concerns grew out of an incident where an unlicensed, unvaccinated dog bit a couple in their own yard and was then hit by a car.
The wrong DCO was called and she was bitten; she and the couple required post-exposure rabies shots.
“And this is not atypical,” Mr. Airey said at the time.
The discussion fizzled—largely over the question of enforcement.
But it hasn’t gone away, Mr. Durma said.
Shelters won’t accept dogs with a history of biting or who are considered dangerous, he said, and the Animal Shelter of Schoharie Valley, like most shelters, is too often filled with abandoned dogs to take the ones he needs to bring in.
“There are some dogs that just aren’t adoptable,” he said; some “should be euthanized to make way for other dogs. The problem just spills over to the rest of the community.
“People are abusing me, the shelter…The Sheriff’s Office needs to go after these people,” Mr. Durma said, but he gets no help there.
Mr. Airey recalled a conversation he had in 2023 with the SPCA in Cooperstown about working together that he thought went well.
But in a follow-up phone call, he said, “It was like the first one had never happened. Their director told me ‘We’re not going to be Schoharie County’s death camp.’ I was mortified. I was shocked.”
Mr. Airey said he’s equally concerned about the lack of help the DCO’s are getting from the Sheriff’s Office.
“It’s quiet in Blenheim right now, but I could get a phone call Saturday morning.
“How are we supporting these DCOs? No one’s going to want to take these jobs. And it’s already pitting neighbor against neighbor. How long before that escalates?”
Mr. Airey asked Mr. Durma for “five bullet points we can get our arms around.”
Mr. VanWormer suggested supervisors’ Ag Committee as a place to start; Ag Committee chair Alicia Terry said the discussion should probably involve the Law Enforcement Committee as well.
Supervisors’ chair Bill Federice asked the critical question, though: “Where are we going to remove them [dangerous dogs] to? That’s the real sticking point. We’re going to have to find a place to put these animals.”
Mr. Federice said he’ll put together a committee to look at the situation, but wants some time to think about how to best set it up.