VIDALIA — With the rest of Concordia Parish facing a mounting feral animal problem, one local city has found a way to address it.

Vidalia has had a leash law since the 1970s, and the police department now has a full-time animal control officer, Mayor Hyram Copeland said.

Police Chief Billy Hammers said the Vidalia Police will work with pet owners if the officer picks up their pet.

“We understand that sometimes dogs just get out of the house,” he said. “We give (the owners) a little leniency.”

Humane officer Jim Boren said that as a dog owner he understands that pets sometimes escape.

“Some dogs just like to rove,” he said. “Some dogs just don’t stay inside.”

However, Boren said repeat offenders — dogs that have been picked up three or more times — are ticketed.

A leash law violation ticket costs $84.

If Boren — whose department vehicle has a cage in the back — catches a dog with a collar, he tries to find its owner, he said.

If he cannot find the owner or if the dog is uncollared, Boren said he takes it to the city pound off Sycamore Street.

Animals can be impounded for seven days — during which time their owners can pick them up or they can be adopted — before they are euthanized, Boren said.

The police receive anywhere from five to 15 animal control calls a week, Boren said.

“If it’s an animal, we get a call about it,” he said.

Most of the calls are for dogs running loose, but the police also receive a lot of calls about opossums and skunks, he said.

A lot of people will set out cages to catch feral cats and will instead catch skunks, Boren said.

Though he receives a few calls about snakes or alligators a year, Boren said the scary calls are usually for stray dogs like Pitt Bulls.

Though he did remove one alligator from someone’s goldfish pool this year, Boren said most alligators aren’t interested in anything other than reaching a destination.

“Most alligators are just trying to get from one place to another,” he said.

The problem a parish animal control officer will face is that most of the animals they will respond to aren’t pets, Boren said.

“They’re not just going to be able to whistle at a dog and it jump into the back of their truck like a lot of the tame animals I deal with,” he said.

Because of that, another factor a parish animal control officer would have to face is cost, Boren said.

“They’re going to have to trap a lot of those animals,” he said. “A cat-sized cage costs about $50, and one big enough for a dog is going to run anywhere from $200-$300.”