A little more than one year ago, there was an animal control incident at our house. It was resolved peacefully, but it also showed us how stray animal control is handled in the rural areas of Freeborn County.

What happened was this: One morning we found a large dog lying in a bloody snow bank a couple of yards from our kitchen door. When I approached the dog, a rottweiler, it growled and started to get up. I fled back into the house. We didn’t recognize the dog, but it had a collar and looked well-fed, so it was somebody’s pet. We contacted our neighbors, but it didn’t belong to any of them.

When I finally called the law enforcement center, I found out that, as far as county government was concerned, we were on our own. Since we lived outside the city limits, nobody was going to be sent to deal with this injured animal.

Luckily, a sympathetic deputy volunteered to call the radio station so that they could broadcast a notice about the dog. And luckily, a couple of volunteers from the Humane Society of Freeborn County showed up later that morning to collect the dog.

It was an unnecessarily frustrating experience. I don’t know the whole history of animal control in this community, but I suspect that the reasons county and township boards aren’t involved in animal control relate mainly to the expense and the hassle.

But here are a couple of major problems that their lack of commitment caused in our situation.

For one, the only way to get into our garage was to walk right past where this potentially dangerous dog was lying. If it had attacked someone, sheriff’s deputies would have responded, but that wouldn’t have saved them from stitches or worse.

And second, there were the risks to those very courageous volunteers from the Humane Society. Since it was a day off from school for Albert Lea students, they had to bring their children along with them. As it turned out, the dog went quite peacefully, once it had been restrained. But what if it had turned into a vicious, snarling bundle of muscles and teeth?

It’s one thing for a community to rely on volunteers and charity to provide a route to adoption for unwanted pets. But it’s unfair to expect volunteers to collect, transport, and dispose of potentially dangerous animals &045; like injured rottweilers or Bengal tigers. Animal adoption is a &uot;charitable&uot; activity; dealing with nuisance and/or dangerous animals is not.

While the Humane Society of Freeborn County serves county residents by responding to nuisance animal calls (as often as the volunteers are able), the organization currently receives nothing, not even an office or a telephone, from the county. They fund themselves with donations and animal adoption fees. And we have no nuisance or stray animal rules covering rural areas of our county to guide those volunteers, either from the commissioners or the townships.

This situation is disgraceful. The reluctance of local government entities to take responsibility for animal control is dangerously shortsighted, whether the reasons are based on expense or on the complexity of the rules needed. Whether it’s about picking up abandoned, injured animals or dealing with dogs that chase cars on rural roads, local government has to be involved.

The City of Albert Lea has a pound and personnel to back up their ordinances. Why can’t the county and townships start sharing those facilities and personnel? Even if the actual ordinances aren’t the same, I suspect that there would be many ways that town and country can cooperate on animal control issues.

The Humane Society of Freeborn County is undergoing a funding and leadership crisis right now, a crisis that is due in large part to the lack of support from local government. Residents who believe in the mission and work of the Humane Society need to attend a meeting at 6:30 p.m. next Wednesday, Feb. 5, at the Union Center in Albert Lea.

But just becoming active in the society won’t be enough. If this community is going to continue to shift responsibility for animal control to the Humane Society and its volunteers, we also need to contact our county and township officials and get them to provide more support, like effective rules and ongoing financial resources.

David Rask Behling is a rural Albert Lea resident. His column appears Tuesdays.