Dr. Matt Kerns said he doesn’t want to curtail a community service his business, Animal Clinic of Baker, has provided since long before he started working there as a veterinarian.

But Kerns said the business, which he owns, can no longer impound dogs picked up by local police, primarily the Baker City Police Department.

“It’s become a real challenge,” Kerns said on Wednesday, Feb. 5.

He said he notified the city, which pays the clinic $10 per night per impounded dog ($20 for dogs deemed dangerous or on a rabies hold) that he will be withdrawing from the agreement as of Feb. 15. 

The current contract dates to November 2020.

Kerns said he met recently with Baker City Police Chief Ty Duby and Sgt. Mike Regan, City Manager Barry Murphy, volunteers from Best Friends of Baker as well as Dick Haines, a co-founder of New Hope for Eastern Oregon Animals.

Kerns said Best Friends volunteers have been so dedicated over the past couple decades that the clinic has rarely had to euthanize a dog because it wasn’t either claimed by its owner, or temporarily housed by a Best Friends volunteer, within the city’s prescribed five-day period.

The city pays the clinic $72 for each dog that is euthanized.

(Impounded dogs can be kept for up to seven days, he said, if the five-day limit happens on a weekend.)

The problem, Kerns said, is that Best Friends no longer has enough volunteers to rescue most impounded dogs. He said it has also become harder for volunteers to find people willing to adopt dogs permanently.

Sumir Brown, the dog lead for Best Friends, said their number of foster homes has decreased over the last few years.

“We’re running out of people who are willing or qualified,” she said. “We’ve had to slow way down to figure out what’s best for the dog, and the community.”

The current foster volunteers, she said, either already have a dog or need a break. And, a number of past fosters ended up adopting the dog they were caring for, which made it more difficult to continue as a foster home.

Since late December, Brown said 21 dogs have come through the care of Best Friends, and this includes impounded dogs that were unclaimed, adoptions, owner surrenders and transporting to other shelters. Dogs and cats available for adoption are posted on petfinder.com.

Kerns said that if the Animal Clinic continued to impound dogs, the staff would have to start euthanizing dogs much more frequently due to the lack of foster homes through Best Friends.

“That goes against everything we work for here,” he said. “It’s an emotionally tough thing.”

A longer term issue, Kerns said, is that people who reclaim impounded dogs often are verbally abusive to his staff. Many people, he said, don’t know how the process works, and that the clinic houses dogs but doesn’t actually pick up and impound them.

Social media has inflamed the situation in many cases, he said.

“I can’t subject my staff to it any more,” Kerns said. “It’s just too much.”

Baker County commissioners discussed the situation during their meeting Wednesday morning, Feb. 5, at the courthouse.

Duby, the Baker City Police chief, told commissioners that he believes the city can reach an agreement with the Animal Clinic or another vet clinic to impound dogs that have bitten someone. Duby said that’s relatively rare.

He said the police department won’t continue to impound dogs that are running loose but bitten someone, however.

Ashley McClay, public information officer for the sheriff’s office, read a letter from Sheriff Travis Ash. Ash expressed concern about the effects of no longer having a place to impound dogs.

Murphy, the Baker City manager, told commissioners that a possible option, at least temporarily, is to drive impounded dogs to the shelter in La Grande.

But Duby said he thinks that would be difficult. Challenges would include hauling dogs to La Grande, since police officers wouldn’t be able to do so because they have duties within Baker City. Owners who want to reclaim their pets would also have to drive to La Grande.

Commissioner Christina Witham suggested to Murphy that the Baker City Council consider the possibility of buying a nine-acre property, on 17th Street in west Baker City, that was formerly used as a boarding kennel.

The property could potentially be subdivided and sold for housing sites to offset the cost, Witham said.

“I can definitely bring that option to the city (council),” Murphy said.

Kerns said the situation is frustrating because Baker City lacks the property tax base that larger cities rely on to operate publicly owned animal shelters.

Yet there is a need here for such a facility, he said.

People who live within the city who reclaim an impounded dog are required to show that the dog has been licensed with the city and has been inoculated against rabies.

The city collects about $3,000 annually in dog license fees and about $8,000 in fees to release impounded dogs.

The city budgeted $11,000 in the current fiscal year for animal control expenses.