Wayward strays keep new Morristown dog catcher busy

This story by Tommy Gardner was first published by the News & Citizen on Feb. 29.

Morristown’s new dog catcher is putting some teeth into the town’s animal ordinance.

Bruce Emerson, a desk officer with the Morristown Police Department and a retired Stowe cop, has been named the town’s animal control officer, a position that has been vacant for almost a year.

“I filled the position because there was some need for enforcement, with the state laws and ordinances that are being violated here in town,” Emerson said recently. “The attitude of the town is we need to kind of rein in some of these things that haven’t been enforced.”

Morristown police have, over the past year, grown frustrated with the number of repeat offenders they deal with, folks who rack up numerous retail thefts all around the village and commercial districts. They arrest them, and the alleged perpetrators go free and re-offend soon after.

There are also some repeat offenders with four legs.

According to weekly police incident logs between Town Meeting Day 2023 and Feb. 22 of this year, there were roughly 120 reported “animal problems.” While a few of those dealt with loose livestock, nearly all of them were dog related.

One particular pooch — a big white dog that lives on the north end of town and roams free around Route 15, Center Road and Munson Avenue — has been featured numerous times in the weekly police blotter in the past couple of months.

Dec. 31, it was spotted running loose on Harrell Street. Jan. 9, it was seen snacking on a dead deer on the side of Route 15. Jan. 24, it was running free in the Price Chopper parking lot.

On Jan. 14, before Emerson stepped up, a fellow police officer was unable to corral the unruly cur and get it home and warned the owner to get their pet under control or face fines. Last week, that same dog earned its owner tickets on three separate occasions.

Since Emerson is still operating under the current ordinance — adopted in 2012 and revised in 2015 — he cannot make subsequent fines steeper, but he hopes the rules will be updated soon.

At the Feb. 5 selectboard meeting, when he was appointed to the post — the title is officially animal control officer, but the town ordinance explicitly limits animals to dogs and wolf hybrids — Emerson was asked if he would take care of loose cows. He said police officers will often assist in a wide variety of scenarios, to an extent.

“We help out as much as we can, but riding the range and rodeoing aren’t part of it,” he told the board.

Another stipulation for Emerson taking on the extra duty was making sure there would be a place to take the dogs that have to be impounded, “because they aren’t coming home with me.”

He said he has been working over the past few weeks with Lamoille Kennels. The business has been operating out of its space on Garfield Road in Morristown for decades but scaled back significantly last year. For now, Emerson said, he and the kennels are working as things come up, but he hopes the town and the kennels can ultimately come to terms on a contract.

For 44 years, Brian Kellogg, a smiling friendly fixture at the Morristown and Stowe trash transfer stations and on the town selectboard, acted as the town’s animal control officer. He stepped away from those duties last March after he was beaten in his selectboard re-election bid during an unpopular budget season.

Kellogg died last September. This year’s Town Meeting Day annual report is dedicated to him.

“Brian was devoted to the animals who came into his care, and he never considered the animals at fault for the trouble they may be blamed for. He knew that their ‘bad’ behavior was due in part to their human owners,” the town report dedication reads.

Emerson agrees with that sentiment.

“Dogs are going to act like dogs,” he said. “They don’t know about human laws and whatnot, so it’s up to owners to train them.”

Emerson said while Kellogg served a valuable role as dog catcher for the town over his 44 years in the position, he rarely wrote tickets. Kellogg — with, as the town report notes, his “cherubic face, an ever-sweet smile, and a delightful mischievous giggle” — tended to be more of a helper and nurturer, rather than a law enforcer.

Having the dog control officer be an actual police officer, though, cuts through that awkward situation of having to punish someone, Emerson said.

He said he doesn’t intend on simply slapping people with fines if he can work with dog owners to make sure they get their animals licensed and vaccinated. All dogs must be registered every year by April 1.

Among other rules, every dog in the village must be on a leash and all dogs need to have a collar or harness with the current license attached and can be immediately impounded if any of that is missing. Emerson said he intends to use the Morristown Police Department Facebook page to put the word out if a pooch ends up in doggie jail.

He said last week, after he impounded a pit bull and posted about it, he received numerous emails and phone calls, and the owner came within hours to bail their pet out.

Emerson said he has plenty of experience with dogs and can’t recall being badly bitten in all that time. However, other animals aren’t so friendly.

“I almost had my arm shredded to pieces dealing with a cat in Stowe,” he said.

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