Springtown animal control officer cares for strays, lost pets

After almost a month after its launch, animal control services in Springtown are in full swing.

At the helm of those services is Sage Lingo, Springtown’s new animal control officer. She’s the go-to person to handle intake services – in partnership with code compliance workers and police officers – and take care of the shelter animals.

But one thing that Lingo is not trying to do is take anyone’s pet away from them. It’s a common misconception, she said, that an animal control officer aims to take away pets from their owners.

“I don’t want to keep people’s pets. That is not my goal,” Lingo said. “My goal is to make sure that they’re cared for as they should be. Everyone has different versions of that, but as long as they have the basics – they’re in a healthy, happy environment; they’re well cared for – that’s our goal.”

Lingo’s job entails picking up loose animals to protect them from harm as well as prevent them from harming humans or causing car wrecks. She also is focused on preventing the spread of diseases in animal communities.

“There’s also the safety concerns if there are animals running rampant, making sure everybody’s vaccinated and preventing the spread of rabies and other diseases,” Lingo said. “There’s a fair amount that are contagious to people that not everyone knows about, and that’s a real issue. My main goal is just to help make sure that people are educated.”

Before starting her current position, Lingo was a veterinary technician who performed a wide variety of tasks, including surgeries and taking care of the boarded animals. Lingo has wanted to work with animals since at least the first grade, she said.

“I’ve always had a drive to make sure they’re well cared for. I’ve always gotten along with the majority of animals,” Lingo said. “I like to spend time with the ones that are a little shy, not quite as outgoing, maybe they’re a little scared and get to have them come out of their shell, make some progress as far as trusting people, doing a little bit of training.”

As far as caring for animals, her work at Springtown’s animal shelter is similar to what she did as a veterinary technician, except her animal patients show up at random locations across the city.

“I have a high standard of care for those that are in my custody,” Lingo said. “I make sure that everything is as clean as it can be. Sometimes it’s a little challenging with feral cats especially, but everybody gets clean food, water. I maintain a high level of cleanliness standards for runs to help prevent disease. Everything I would do at a hospital or boarding setting, I try to maintain that for even a shelter. They deserve equal care.”

Springtown Administrative Services Director Christina Derr praised Lingo’s work so far, especially because she started a position that was previously nonexistent in the city. The city used to operate its own shelter, but that hasn’t been the case in years. Before launching animal control services on Oct. 1, the city partnered with Parker County animal control for those services.

“To start that kind of program, essentially from scratch, is not a small task, and she’s had a very limited time to get that up and running,” Derr said. “Essentially, she’s trying to get all of that put together while operating the shelter because day one, hey, those animals, they started coming in. She’s done an exceptional job at what we’ve needed her to do.”

Derr described Lingo as an outside-the-box thinker who looks for resolutions that are fair for animals and their owners.

Lingo said she’s excited to be a part of something new in Springtown.

“I enjoy being a part of creating this and making it something the city can be proud of and something the residents can be proud of,” she said.

CAT CONTROL

One of the challenges of the job is dealing with the large feral cat population, Lingo said.

Because she’s in town, Lingo has been able to respond quicker to stray animal calls than Parker County animal control did, Derr said. Therefore, she has located and brought in more feral cats to the shelter.

“One day, we went from having like one cat to having six or seven cats,” Derr said.

Lingo said the local feral cat population may be bigger than residents know, and she has been trying to prevent the spread of diseases within the feral cat community.

“They can reproduce in mass quantities very quickly as often as every 63 days,” Lingo said. “That’s a lot of cats.”

Caring for feral cats can be more challenging because they sometimes need to be sedated to receive medical care, Derr said. There are also more restrictions to adopting feral cats, who sometimes can only be taken home as barn cats.

However, Derr said Lingo is working on socializing some of the younger feral cats, and some of the shelter cats are getting close to being adoptable.

“We’re very excited about that,” Derr said.

Overall, Lingo’s favorite part of her new job is getting to know people in the Springtown community, and she hopes that she can be someone who the community relies on to take care of the animals and people.

And of course, Lingo has enjoyed caring for the animals.

“I like to go in and love on the ones that allow me to love on them and trying to socialize some of the kittens that we have,” she said. “We have a couple that were not fond of human touch at first, and they’ve come a long way, and now they’re a playful rowdy bunch of kittens. And we have an adult cat in the shelter; she has everyone wrapped around her little finger, and it happened within two days. Everyone wants to feed her snacks.”

For more information about animal control, visit the City of Springtown Animal Control page on Facebook.