Logan City leaders have reached an agreement with the Brigham City Police Department to house lost and stray dogs after negotiations broke down with Logan’s former animal impounding organization, the Cache Humane Society.
Logan Mayor Holly Daines said the city signed an 11-month contract with Brigham City, which allows for the care of animals while the city pursues a long-term solution to its sheltering needs.
“We really appreciate Brigham City’s help with this issue while we figure this out,” Daines said.
Cache County does not have a government-operated animal shelter. Instead, the county and local municipalities traditionally partner with the Cache Humane Society for animal impounding in the organization’s kennels.
Stacey Frisk, Cache Humane Society executive director, said Logan’s contract expired on May 16. The organization continued to reserve kennel space for the Logan City Police Department while negotiations on a new contract were underway, Frisk said, but the city’s proposed terms fell short and prompted an end to the partnership on July 26.
“Fundamentally, it came down to their most recent proposal to drastically cut funding below the level where we would be able to maintain our standard of care,” Frisk said.
Frisk said the reserved kennel space for dogs captured by Logan City officers led to pet owners being turned away from the shelter’s services.
“We just had to move forward,” Frisk said. “We had to open those kennels up to people looking for a safe no-kill shelter to surrender an animal they could no longer provide care for.”
Gary Jensen, Logan City’s police chief, said the end of negotiations between the city and shelter was “abrupt.” He said the city made a good-faith offer with the expectation that Cache Humane Society would make a counteroffer, but instead the communication simply ended.
While the Brigham City partnership is not optimal — it requires a roughly 30-minute drive for Logan residents — Jensen said the Brigham shelter is a “phenomenally clean" and well-managed facility.
“We feel very strongly that this is a great place for animals,” he said. “It’s a good option for us while we figure out where we go from here.”
So far, no Logan animals have been transferred to Brigham City. A total of six dogs have been picked up by officers in the two weeks since the partnership with Cache Humane Society ended, and in each case the animals were quickly reunited with their families.
The police department maintains a small number of kennels for its law-enforcement animals, Jensen said. Those kennels allow for the short-term storage of lost and stray dogs in Logan, which will then be transferred to Brigham City if they are not immediately claimed.
And in the event that a dog is not claimed after five days in the Brigham City facility, Daines said, the animal would be transferred back to Logan for additional sheltering or placement in an adoption program.
“We’re working out the details,” she said. “We’re trying to contact other agencies that take dogs for adoption.”
Jensen said one effect of the changes is that the Logan City Police Department is currently not able to respond to calls of feral and nuisance cats. The short-term storage of dogs — which traditionally would be taken immediately to Cache Humane Society — has required the department to prioritize.
“We’d certainly still help people try to locate a [pet] cat,” he said.
