HAMLET — The City of Hamlet has continued to receive complaints about the prevalence of aggressive stray dogs and on Tuesday the City Council directed staff to use existing resources to address the problem, as well as to seek further training from the Richmond County Sheriff’s Office.
Chief Tommy McMasters told the council that the Hamlet Police Department has received roughly 280 complaints about dogs this year and 15 so far this month. There have been about 400 complaints since Jan. 1, 2018 but City Manager Jonathan Blanton said he was only aware of “less than five” citations in that time frame.
McMasters explained that it’s been difficult to address the issue because strays do not have owners, and therefore there’s no one to punish for mishandling the dogs. He said that no “attacks” have been reported, characterizing the complaints as being in reference to “stray dogs that sometimes appear aggressive.”
Problems with handling stray dogs have grown across the county, and Hamlet residents reported in public comments to council earlier this year that they have begun carrying sticks or other blunt objects with them when they travel by foot to defend themselves from the animals.
“Since I arrived in Hamlet, there have consistently been complaints about animals,” Blanton said in an email. “It does appear that over the last six months there have been more complaints voiced. I would not say that Hamlet has a ‘major’ issue with animal control or an abnormal problem … Stray, feral animals are a difficult problem to tackle that, unfortunately, cannot be solved over-night.”
Currently, HPD officers are having to address animal control calls while on regular duty, stopping what they are doing to pick up the animal control truck, which McMasters said is time they spend out of the patrol car and unable to a respond to an emergency.
The short-term solution, approved by an informal consensus of the council Tuesday, will be to use funds already budgeted for staff that is not being used — due to five vacancies — to pay off-duty officers to work overtime addressing animal complaints.
McMasters said that HPD has already planned for officers to receive training from the sheriff’s office’s Animal Control officers. Hamlet does not have any officers specifically designated “animal control” but Blanton said “all officers have basic instructions and guidelines on how to handle animal control calls.”
”We want to begin to provide more in-depth training for all of our officers in order to better solve the problem and, of course, keep our officers safe,” Blanton said.
Mayor Pro Tem Jesse McQueen said he will push at the next budget work session in January for funds to be used to hire a part-time animal control officer who could be hired before the end of the current fiscal year. He said this position could at some point become full-time.
“We already have the equipment and trucks, all we need is a trained person at this point,” McQueen said. “I’m committed to making sure we address this issue quickly.”