CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — Animal Care Services Program Director Mike Gillis said his department will no longer set traps to catch the stray dogs that have been hounding residents in the Los Encinos area.
We first told you about the problem Jan. 8, after video surfaces showing strays mauling a neighbor's dog. We must warn you, the video is graphic and may be hard for some to watch.
Gillis said ACS has known that this area near Los Encinos has a high population of stray animals, and has been out there trying to catch these strays long before the video surfaced.
But so far, they have only managed to catch two.
“It’s like the dogs have a sixth sense," he said. "They hear the engines of our trucks, and they know we're there.”
Additionally, some people in the area are not helping the cause.
“Our traps were ineffective, and we couldn't understand why we couldn't get one dog in there,” said Gillis. “We went out there one day and we noticed the construction personnel were feeding the dogs Burger King, so of course they're not going to go in our traps.”
Gillis said CCACS set out two traps earlier this month to try and catch the strays, but when they went back to check them, it was clear that a human had tampered with them and set the strays loose.
“Evidently a dog was captured in the trap and some human had manipulated the trap open to let the dog loose, and in doing so, disabled the trap and broke the trap,” said Gillis.
It's because of the tampering, that CCACS is no longer setting traps in that area.
“They're over $300 dollars for these traps,” said Gillis.
He says the traps are complicated to open, but they are humane.
Nevertheless, just because they're no longer setting traps out there, doesn't mean they're giving up.
“We will do regular weekly sweeps when I have a double shift on duty, so we can go out with more than one truck,” said Gillis.