Stevens County Prepares A Bare-Bones Dog Plan Commissioners Reluctantly Agree To End Long-Running Battle Over Strays

There’s a peace accord in Bosnia, the troubles in Northern Ireland may pass and there’s even hope for an end to the Stevens County Dog War.

Stevens County commissioners are reluctantly prepared to get into the dogcatching business, but only if canine advocate Joyce Tasker quits sniping at them.

Tasker, who operates a dog shelter in her semi-rural home, says she is eager for the county to take over the task of rounding up stray dogs. She’d like to devote herself to animal-welfare education.

But she doesn’t want to start being charged for animals she might continue to turn over to the county.

“I would fight them to the absolute death on restricting the dogs that can come in,” Tasker said. “I would bring them in and, if they charge me, I wouldn’t pay them.”

Commissioners are equally determined that, if they launch a dog-control program, Tasker must not be allowed to flood it with dogs she collects. They envision a “bare bones” program that would respond to complaints but not scour the countryside in search of strays.

That may be less than Tasker wants, but is considerably more than commissioners were prepared to offer in April 1994, when commission Chairman Allan Mack declared the county already had “more than a plateful of responsibilities.”

Sheriff Craig Thayer, who doesn’t want dogs in his patrol cars, required no convincing. But now even the county’s most conservative commissioner, J.D. Anderson, favors a limited dog-control program.

He’d like to hold owners responsible, but recognizes that can’t always be done. While farmers and ranchers may shoot troublesome strays, that’s not feasible in the county’s growing suburban areas.

“They always try to make me look like a dog hater, but I trained dogs for the military professionally,” Anderson said. “I love animals. It’s not their fault. It’s our fault - the people who have the animals - for not taking care of them.”

In the past year, Tasker has focused attention on the problem by bringing stray and abandoned dogs to the Colville city pound for disposal under a contract with the county. Through Oct. 31, she has forced the county to pay $9,317 for boarding and disposal of more than 225 dogs at the city pound.

The contract was limited in the past to a handful of dogs the sheriff’s department was forced to impound. But Tasker found she could twist the commissioners’ tails by making them pay for dogs she brings.

“She is continuing to point an animal problem out to the county,” said Colville City Administrator Harlan Elsasser, who would welcome a joint city-county animal-control program. “I support her reasons, but not the manner in which she is doing it - and I think a lot of people say the same.”

A somewhat ambiguous 1955 law says county governments must accept animals if they are left with a veterinarian or kennel operator and the animal owner refuses to retrieve the animal or pay for the service. Commissioners are skeptical, but Prosecutor Jerry Wetle thinks the law applies to dogs from Tasker’s Dog Patch shelter.

Commissioners say they’re willing to assume the responsibility for rounding up strays when people complain, but they want to charge for dogs that residents bring to the pound. Especially if the resident is Joyce Tasker.

“I don’t want to go into any kind of an expanded program without some kind of an ordinance or contract that is going to keep somebody who is a collector from dumping them on the backs of the taxpayers,” Mack said.

“When the prosecuting attorney forms a contract that will preclude that kind of stuff, we’ll set up a dog-catching operation with the city and we’ll go out and get ‘em,” he said. “Joyce Tasker is the one who stands in the way - she and the prosecutor.”

However, Wetle said the commissioners’ desire “may be beyond the scope of the statutory authority.” He doubts the county could charge people who can’t afford to pay - and Tasker says she can’t.

“By hiring somebody and expanding the pound, the majority of the problem may go away,” Wetle speculated.

But that may never be known if Tasker and the commissioners can’t achieve a cease-fire.

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