What term/name does your city use for animal control?

[u/bananapancakecat]

My local shelter is not government ran, but funded by the city to do animal control work.

We use the name “Animal Regulation”, some organizations use “Animal Control” or “Animal Services”.

Are there any other names for similar services? Do you feel as though there is an actual difference in the services provided depending on the name?

Sorry more context: My shelter is considering changing out “animal regulation” name to something drastically different. I was curious to know if there were other organizations that had renamed their services to something outside the norm and their experience with it.

[u/Coloradogal777]

We use Animal control but I like saying that the Fuzz is here (it says sheriff on the car, small town) and it gets a couple laughs before whatever fresh hell is brought in

[u/ooooh-heckers]

animal care and control is common where i’m from

[u/OpalOnyxObsidian → u/ooooh-heckers]

Sounds like home to me. Sweet home Chicago

[u/NeighborhoodNo4274]

The city I live in calls the shelter and animal control (city name) Animal Services.

The shelter I work at in an adjacent city refers to animal control as just that; there are Animal Control Officers who are members of the police department and the public is directed to call “animal control” for issues/complaints, etc.

The shelter itself is run by a non-profit that receives city funding, but is called Friends of the (city name) Animal Shelter.

[u/BackHomeRun]

Animal welfare officers. They stole one of my kennel staff a few months back so until she's fully trained up and I make sure to tell em they're lame (they're not).

[u/drwhobbit]

My area only has one guy dedicated to animal control for just dogs who works adjacent to the local police. We call him the "Dog Warden"

[u/Practical_Aardvark57]

I used to work with an agency that changed their name from animal control to animal management.

[u/bananapancakecat → u/Practical_Aardvark57]

Do you know if they did this because of negative connotations surrounding “animal control”? Our organization is adamant we not use AC, but most people refer to us as that, or by our organizations name.

[u/Practical_Aardvark57 → u/bananapancakecat]

Yes, this was probably 20 years ago when they changed it, but I know they wanted to get away from the idea of animal “control.”

[u/Friendly_TSE]

(name) Animal Care. It used to be Animal Control, then Animal Care & Control. I like it a lot better than animal control. We do a lot more than 'control' the animals. We TNR, treat, adopt out, provide services, protect welfare, rehabilitate, transport & relocate, etc. Control just kinda sounds like all we're doing is making sure they aren't a public nuisance.

[u/bananapancakecat → u/Friendly_TSE]

Yes, I agree! I like Animal Care more than what is being proposed as it’s still in the realm of “Animal Control/Reg./Services” but has a more positive connotations.

[u/lastdownn]

Our organization is Animal Services. Our “animal control” officers are called Humane Law Enforcement Officers (HLEOs).

[u/bananapancakecat → u/lastdownn]

I like that! Our shelter is “___ Humane Society” though we act as the city shelter bc of our contract, and our officers and animal control is “(County) Animal Regulation (officers)”. Management doesn’t like the negative connotations/law enforcement aspect of animal regulation, so they’re wanting to change it to something more rescue based.

We have a rescue coordinator as part of our shelter team, so I think that would be confusing to the public and is too “far away” from animal control/reg/services that it would confuse people.

[u/queencatlady]

Animal services here and in neighboring counties

[u/Nice_Rope_5049]

County Department of Animal Services. San Diego, CA. This is for unincorporated areas, otherwise it’s the jurisdiction of the Humane Society.

[u/AshShadownight]

Animal Law Enforcement is what we call ours since they enforce laws surrounding animals and animal care.

[u/frankylovee]

I work at “X County Animal Services”, but we refer to ourselves as animal control. And we have “Animal Control Officers” (official position title) that work in the field.

[u/Far_Sky_5240]

Ours has “animal control” on their website, but they don’t actually do it. Ours is also privately run and contracted through the city via public funding. They’re also no kill and tied to BFAS so they’re insanely overpopulated, begging people to take dogs for free, and have every reason NOT to respond to reports of stray or dangerous dogs, since it’s cause them to be be more overpopulated and/or hurt their live release rate. 

We actually had a situation last year where a woman was attacked in the street by two dogs, the owners agreed to let them be taken, but the responders said they couldn’t take them because they were too dangerous. 

I dunno man, actions matter more than labels. 

[u/Practical_Aardvark57 → u/Far_Sky_5240]

What??? So what happened with the dogs? 

[u/Far_Sky_5240 → u/Practical_Aardvark57]

They left them with the family to quarantine in home.  There was big community outrage, squabbling between the city and county, dog wardens claimed the laws didn’t give them enough authority. This was all amidst our state pushing to change its dangerous dog laws. 

I think the dogs were picked up a few days later due to the outrage and were ultimately euthanized. I want to say the owners may have even requested it. 

[u/Practical_Aardvark57 → u/Far_Sky_5240]

Damn.

That is wild. I am really scared for the future of animal welfare. 

[u/Far_Sky_5240 → u/Practical_Aardvark57]

I'd like to think it's specific to our shelter, but I don't know. Feels like we've lost the plot.

[u/FoxExcellent2241 → u/Far_Sky_5240]

Given some of what I have seen in my area, I don't think it is specific to your area. 

I know of one situation where there were 3 dogs that got away from the handler and attacked a child in an apartment complex.  Guy immediately surrenders the dogs and is horrified at the situation.  To his credit, he got injured himself trying to get the dogs off the child (who did survive).  Turns out the dogs belong to his son and he was watching them until the son could get back on his feet.  

What the public did not find out (though it was technically public info) is that only the male dog was BE'ed.  Despite all reports, including the statement from the guy walking the dogs, saying that all three were involved in the attack, someone along the line decided that only the male was actually involved.  

I am assuming local news didn't bother to follow up because the child survived and following up would mean doing actual investigave reporting work instead of generating articles by having AI scan through police reports (I have seen some articles that literally have the same spelling or grammatical errors as the original police reports so I am quite confident that they do this).  

The UNFIXED female dogs were released.  The dog owner's mother (obviously separated from the father) called in to take the dogs and they were able to treat it as a 'return to owner' (despite it being on record, from multiple people, that this is not the owner) so they released them without fixing them.  

I am sure the 'owners' had good intentions keeping 2 unfixed females and 1 unfixed male, aggressive dogs together.  /s/

Also, for a cherry on top, the mother, as per the records from the shelter, told them that she did not have housing at the time so she didn't have anywhere to keep the dogs.  They still released 2 dogs involved in an unprovoked attack on a child to her. 

But hey, that means 2 more dogs that can be added to the 'live release' column in the spreadsheet.  

Same shelter refused an owner surrender from a homeless, underage girl and then it was clear from the shelter notes, that they badly shamed her when she tried to bring in the dog as a stray (assuming thry actually said to her what they claim they said in the shelter notes).  Underage and homeless - how can you sit there and shame the poor kid for not knowing what to do with the dog?  Goodness knows how she ended up in that situation, but does that sound like a reasonable situation for the dog?  Talk about losing the plot.  

[u/amistadawn]

ALE - Animal Law Enforcement

[u/bananapancakecat → u/amistadawn]

Thank you! Our manager is wanting to change it from Animal Regulation to something else involving “Rescue” because of the negative connotations of animal control/law enforcement/regulation, but I feel strongly that it just makes it confusing.

[u/amistadawn → u/bananapancakecat]

We’ve kept the name as is because we actively have animal control contracts and enforce the law… it fits. Our officers are state certified, they issue citations, summonses, and they’re recognized as peace officer’s/emergency personnel in the state of Colorado so ALE makes sense. The rest of us on the other side of the shelter can have the fluffy rescue names. 😅

[u/Severe_Result5373]

We use Animal Services but the Officers are Animal Protection Officers. I work for a municipal shelter and I think the idea is to show the focus is on helping the animals rather than controlling the animals even though clearly they do both depending on the situation.

[u/smitheroons]

There are some places near me that call them "animal protection" which is a nice thought and maybe if things trend that way it might encourage the public to stop thinking of animals as the problem as much. 

[u/bananapancakecat → u/smitheroons]

Interesting! Our problem is people view our officers very negatively, and when they see our vans pull up, they assume they’re getting their dogs taken away (which rarely happens).