LUBBOCK, Texas — Lubbock residents have noticed more stray pets on the streets and Lubbock Animal Services tells EverythingLubbock.com there are ways to help keep them out and about making sure pets are spayed and neutered.
Steven Greene, Director of Lubbock Animal Services said, “Well, there are quite a few dogs that are not at home loose on the streets.”
Greene said that some of the calls they receive about a stray dog or cat are not always the case.
Greene said, “A lot of those dogs either have a caregiver, maybe multiple caregivers in the neighborhood, and a lot of those are just lost from their home or not at their home. If we do have a dog like that’s picked up, we do bring it in.”
Greene explained that dogs with no collar with ID or microchip, then those dogs would be considered stray.
Adam Hernandez, communications chair for Lubbock Compact and who is also running for Lubbock Mayor, decided to do a Facebook post about seeing stray dogs.
“So the initial goal was really just to capture stories and to get people’s feedback and input,” Hernandez said. “We’ve already had a lot of people saying like where their neighborhood is, where they’re seeing dogs. So that’s very helpful and it’s really all about trying to address it and to fix it eventually. This has been an ongoing issue in our city for so long and it just seems to be getting worse.”
And Sandi Gordillo who was at animal services dropped off two dogs that were roaming around in her mother’s neighborhood agrees about the number of strays in Lubbock.
Gordillo said, “They’ve been roaming around and she got scared that they might run over. So, she asked me to pick them up and bring them this way. It’s pretty scary. You know, as a driver, I’ve been picking up my kids and you have to stop or, you know, it’s definitely scary.”
Greene said if someone comes across a stray dog that is friendly and doesn’t cause problems, “The best thing to do is just kind of knock on doors and see if anybody knows that dog, knows where it hangs out, and maybe who’s caring for it .”
But if the dog is aggressive, then give Lubbock Animal Services a call.
Greene said, “We will get it to our dispatch office, get on field operations officer dispatch to that location, attempt to contain the animal and capture the animal or even find the animal’s owner and issue citations or find what they need to help keep them animals confined and keep the public safe.”