DeKalb County, GA — Animal advocates and various county and city officials attended the State of DeKalb Animals Address on Wednesday, April 10. During the event, DeKalb County Commissioner Michelle Long Spears announced that the county will be implementing a cost of care strategy in an effort to reduce the number of animals held in shelters due to pending court cases.

“Last year, early on in my first term, numerous constituents approached me with concerns about the animal services situation,” Spears said. “As we dove into this project, we started researching and investigating. We realized there’s a deeper why this initiative is important. [State of DeKalb Animals] shines a bright light on a fractured system for pets and people that needs our attention and repair.”

On Tuesday, April 9, the board of commissioners authorized the county attorney to implement a strategy called cost of care, which means the county attorney can file petitions in court seeking to recover the county’s costs of impoundment and care due to a criminal investigation or criminal proceedings, according to the legislation.

“The tool encourages defendants to surrender their animals earlier in the court process, which currently they often do at the conclusion of their case,” Spears said. “As of March 25, there are 72 court held dogs in DeKalb – 12 in foster care and 60 in the shelter.”

She added that it would also reduce an animal’s length of stay in the county’s shelters, free up space, and allow the animals to be adopted earlier. Animals being held for a court case cannot be adopted until their owner has surrendered them.

During the address, Spears also highlighted that the county has allocated about $10 million to various animal-related items, including $7.5 million for shelter expansion, spay/neuter programs, a pet food bank, mobile vaccination clinics, and an overflow shelter that will increase capacity by 96 dogs and be completed in August.

Many of those initiatives are being done in partnership with Lifeline Animals Services, which oversees the DeKalb County animal shelter.

“What we wanted to do is create a pipeline for people to get the assistance they need for their family members, their companion animals through the county and Lifeline working together. Starting this month, we’ll be doing free vaccinations through Lifeline’s mobile clinic at places within the county that tend to see a lot of intake of animals into the shelter,” Lifeline CEO Rebecca Guinn said.

DeKalb County is funding 1,000 free spay/neuters for DeKalb residents that will done at Lifeline’s Community Animal Center. Lifeline also has an access to care fund for residents whose pets need additional veterinary care beyond spay/neuter or vaccinations.

Claudine Wilkins, former prosecutor and animal law expert, also spoke during the event. She is founder of the Animal Protection Society and Animal Law Source. Wilkins will be working with the county to review its ordinances related to animals.

She’ll be looking at things like breeding permits, the transient pet sales in public places, escalation type sentences for someone who’s a repeat offender, and access to education. She would love to see online animal training for law enforcement and the public.

“What builds the foundation of a good policy and program? If we want DeKalb to be the model for all 159 counties in the state, then we’ve got to do it right,” Wilkins said. “What builds that house, so to speak, is good laws, enforcing those laws, educating those who enforce those laws and awareness for the public.”

She also advocated for more animal control officers in the county. DeKalb has six animal control officers, Wilkins said.

“Not only are they spread too thin, they’re feeling it. You’re going to have a higher turnover rate. They’re going to get burnt out, not respected. There’s a lot of things that happen when you overload them,” Wilkins said.

The State of DeKalb Animals Address additionally featured a panel discussion with Wilkins, DeKalb Sheriff Melody Maddox, State Court of DeKalb County Judge Alvin Wong, and others. Many of the questions they answered related to animal overpopulation.

Overpopulation can impact public safety in terms of dogs potentially harming individuals or being classified as aggressive, Maddox said.

“When you’re talking about the overpopulation of animals, we talk about the quality of life – how will they eat, where will they be living,” Maddox said. “We want to make sure that they have good housing. If they have to fend for themselves out on the street, that means they have to dart in and out of traffic. They become aggressive and then they are all identified as aggressive animals.”

Wong said he is working to get through animal cases faster, but the state has a complex legal system in dealing with animal law. There’s state law, and each county has its own ordinances regarding animals.

“We’ve been working since last September with a prosecutor, my solicitor general, our county attorney, a public defender, all the stakeholders, we have been working on getting these cases resolved,” Wong said.

Wong has been known to bring his dog to work every day. He joked that one bark means guilty, and two barks mean not guilty. He also served on the Lifeline board for six years. The bottom line is resources, he said.

“You want cases faster? Give me more judges, give me more prosecutors, give more public defenders. You want these dogs not to come into the court system? Give our Director [Joseph] Lumpkin more resource officers, more animal control officers,” Wong said. “My promise to you – we will do it better and we will try to do it faster.”

Lumpkin is the deputy chief operating officer of public safety in DeKalb County.

Dr. Gregory Berns also shared about his research on how dogs think. To see his presentation and other speakers, see the video below:

To learn more about upcoming State of DeKalb Animals events, click here.

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