Apatang assures stray dog issue still a priority

Saipan Mayor David M. Apatang assures that the Dog Control Program is still very much active in controlling the number of stray dogs on Saipan and encourages the community to register their dogs.

In an interview with Apatang, he said the staff of the Dog Control Program have been going to villages and visiting the homes of those who have dogs but don’t have them registered with the mayor’s office.

“We just want to let the community know that we’re coming, so those people who are continuing to ignore the program and continue to raise dogs and not take care of them [that] we have rules for animals. They need to register their dogs and then you need to tie them or put them on a leash,” said Apatang.

Dog Control Program manager Martin Pangelinan said that any dog that is found roaming without a program tag is considered a stray dog and will be impounded. “One thing that people got to think of is that any dog that we come across… if they don’t have a tag, we consider them stray dogs. So that’s what owners have to think about, that if we capture a dog and it does not have a tag from the…Dog Control Program, we consider it a stray dog,” he said.

According to Pangelinan, owners who claim dogs that are not registered with the Dog Control Program will pay a fee of $46. This includes a registration fee, a first impound fee, a boarding fee, and a penalty fee. Owners have two weeks to claim their dogs. If they don’t, the dog will be euthanized.

In response to complaints that a group of dogs has been terrorizing those who are taking a walk at the American Memorial Park, Apatang stated that they have been setting traps out in the community to catch stray dogs and cats. “I will communicate with the park rangers over there to see if we can set up traps,” he said.

Recently, the Saipan Mayor’s Office and the Legislature broke ground on an animal shelter building that will be built at the Department of Lands and Natural Resources agricultural station in As Perdido.

According to Apatang, this new animal shelter will open in the middle part of this year. It is a 5,000-square-meter animal shelter that will have two separate sections on one large floor area, with one section for the kennel and the other section for offices, animal examination rooms, clinics, restrooms, a two-vehicle indoor garage, 18-vehicle parking stalls, and a laundry room.

The semi-concrete kennel will have 40 animal holding stalls. The shelter will have its own wastewater and sewer system, as the Commonwealth Utilities Corp. wastewater sewer line system is not available in the area. The total project cost is over $500,000, which is partially funded by disaster assistance awards, capital improvement funds, and local delegation appropriations.

Staff of the Dog Control Program have also been going out to pick up dogs who have been run over.