Can Polk County Animal Control be fixed?

Editorial

The answer is yes, but the following has to be resolved, ASAP.

Currently, with only one veterinarian, Animal Control cannot do proper medical care to all the animals.

Also, Animal Control contracts out about 90% of its spay and neuter services, why?

With an additional veterinarian, Animal Control could put a huge dent in these two issues.

Animal Control needs to work with the animal non-for-profits to get the animals out of the pound and get adopted.  One dog was in the pound for 161 days before being adopted.

Lakeland is getting two Cat Cafés and already has a mobile cat adoption company.

Two, Polk County Animal Control needs a low-cost spay and neuter voucher program for low-income and senior clients. Free rabies vaccine weekends twice a year.

And the third thing, Polk County Animal Control needs to support the Trap and release program (TNR).

Trap-neuter-release programs save cat lives and stabilize the community cat population.

If Sheriff Grady Judd refuses to support this solution the only option is to remove Polk County Animal Control out of the control of the sheriff’s office.

To date, Sheriff Grady Judd has refused to comment or allow an interview of himself on these topics.