FERRIDAY — Ferridians are tired of stray and loose dogs.

“Some people are scared of dogs,” Mayor Glen McGlothin said. “I’m scared of snakes, and if this town was as full of snakes as it is of dogs, I wouldn’t live here.”

Wandering and stray dogs have been a problem in Ferriday for years, and they continue to interrupt daily life — stepping out into traffic, digging through garbage and, in at least two recent incidents, biting people.

“We get calls about dogs all the time,” Assistant Police Chief Johnny Evans said. “I couldn’t give you a number, but it’s very common.”

If the dog does belong to someone, the police can give the owners a citation for a leash law violation.

“There’s nothing we can do about a stray dog,” Evans said. “We try to find an owner, but if nobody owns it — nobody owns it.”

When a dog bites someone, the police write the owner a citation and take the dog to a local veterinarian’s office for a week so it can be observed for rabies, Evans said.

Part of the problem in recent years has been that the leash law on the books hasn’t been strictly enforced, but McGlothin said that’s about to change.

“I have gotten my last call about stray dogs,” he said.

The town attorney is currently drafting a letter that will be sent out to all Ferriday residents telling them of the coming leash law crackdown.

“I don’t want anybody to be blindsided,” McGlothin said. “We’re sending this in case we pick up somebody’s dog, they know what we are doing.”

The town already owns a truck that can be used for animal control, has cages to trap and even owns a dart gun for apprehending nuisance dogs.

What’s holding things back is that the only person certified to use those tools — a former firefighter — no longer works for the town, and McGlothin said he’s hoping to work with some locals who can teach someone how to properly use the equipment.

The goal is ultimately to have an animal enforcement officer, he said.

The issue of where to house strays that are picked up also needs to be addressed, and the mayor said he would like to work something out with the Concordia Animal Welfare Shelter, which has a building in Ferriday. CAWS ceased operations as the Concordia Parish rescue shelter in February 2008.

But housing animals takes funds, and McGlothin said the town is just going to have to grit its teeth and fund it.

When he meets with the town finance committee in the coming month to plan the town budget, McGlothin said he will work to ensure that some kind of animal control solution is included in the budget.

“We are going to have to do it piecemeal, but we are going to have to do it,” he said.

“My problem is that some of these dogs are dangerous, and it is time for us to do something about them.”