IBERIA PARISH — The City of New Iberia is taking new steps to address a growing stray dog problem. A microchip scanning station has been installed outside City Hall, and officials say it could help reunite lost pets with their owners while also reducing the number of aggressive dog packs roaming neighborhoods.
“We have one at City Hall that you can come with any dog you find, or if you want to make sure your chip works, you can come and just scan the dog, and it tells you who the dog belongs to,” said District 6 Councilman Dan Doerle.
Doerle said the city previously relied on the parish for animal control. But with no active dog catcher and no scanner available, city leaders decided to move forward on their own.
“That’s a big deal right now in New Iberia,” Doerle said. “We’re having some packs of dogs, and some of the dogs have collars, so they might not all be wild dogs, but they kind of go as a group. We’re trying to find a way that might be more efficient for us to find the owners versus catching them and trying to get them to the pound.”
Staffing shortages have left the parish unable to provide a dog catcher, creating gaps in coverage as stray populations rise, according to Doerle.
“It’s just hard to find people that really want to work, and they didn’t have one for a while,” he said. “So the city — the mayor talked to the parish president about having our own dog catcher and still bringing it to their pound that we pay a couple hundred thousand a year for, and he decided he didn’t want that. So we have to look at it from a different direction, and this is just one step of what we might have to do.”
While discussions continue with the parish, Doerle said the scanner is an important first step. But if an agreement can’t be reached, New Iberia may eventually need to consider creating its own dog pound — a costly alternative.
