Louisiana City Is Going to the Dogs--Literally : Packs of wild canines roam streets at night as municipality cuts back on animal control.

By night they come: dozens of bedraggled and skittish dogs in various shapes, sizes and conditions, fanning out over the city.

In Uptown New Orleans, the dogs sleep on the tracks of the city’s historic streetcar line. In the rapidly expanding suburbs of New Orleans East, they tear into plastic garbage bags, foraging for food. In the courtyards of blighted housing complexes, they run in packs of 10 or more, frightening residents by their sheer numbers and hungry look.

Almost everywhere in New Orleans, wild street dogs sleep under houses and in hidden alleyways by day, emerging by night.

“You can see them, they come in big bunches and run up and down the street until sunrise. Then they just sort of disappear,” said Bob Fowler, an unemployed taxi driver who lives near the Calliope housing complex in one of New Orleans’ poorest neighborhoods. “You can’t get near them, you can’t try to catch them or tame them. They’re wild dogs, almost like wolves in the woods.”

Although most large urban areas across the country maintain animal control services to keep homeless animal populations to a minimum, in New Orleans those efforts have been nearly eliminated. The city, up against a local recession nearly a decade old, does not have the money to pay for them.

Three trucks from the Louisiana Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals take to the streets twice a week to pick up stray and injured dogs and cats; several years ago, seven trucks collected animals five days a week.

The SPCA’s operating budget in New Orleans this year is just over $1 million, with city funds at about $150,000, and most of the money goes for such items as staff salaries, building maintenance and overhead for a neutering clinic, according to Gary Frazell, the society’s executive director here. (In contrast, Portland, Ore., a city of similar size, spends $1.8 million a year for animal control, with $1.3 million coming from the local government.)

“We have more wild animals running loose in the city now than at any time before,” Frazell said. “Where once we picked up an average of about 40,000 stray dogs and cats a year, this year we’ve been below even 20,000, which means, of course, that we’re continually falling behind and that every year the wild animal population in New Orleans is going to increase.”

Jeff Dorson, executive director of Legislation in Support of Animals, a local animal rights organization, describes the situation as “out of control” and dangerous.

“There are literally tens of thousands of stray animals in this city running loose--sick, diseased animals that bite people or get hit by cars and die painful deaths in the street,” Dorson said. “And no one knows what to do. This place is like a Third World country when it comes to animals . . . . We’re a city of half a million people with virtually no animal control.”

City Health Director Brobson Lutz agreed with the comparison to the Third World but questioned the seriousness of the problem. “It’s true that our animal control program is underfunded,” Lutz said, “but so are our child health clinics, our AIDS programs and our park cleanup programs. Everything is underfunded in New Orleans, but I don’t think, when it comes to the animals, that we have to hit the panic button.”

However, some residents have decided that it is time to hit the telephones. “Sometimes, on some weeks, every other call is on the animal problem,” said Sue Tebbe, an aide to City Councilwoman Peggy Wilson.

And others, such as Legislation in Support of Animals, have turned to the courts. It has filed suit against the city, demanding more funds for the SPCA.

But, at the SPCA’s offices here, in a riverfront neighborhood composed of old warehouses and crumbling houses, the daily demands of animal control supersede all of the political and legal wrangling.

“When you have to destroy more than 300 animals a week, and you know that you’re still only scratching the surface, you don’t have time to worry about much else,” Frazell said. “Everyone is looking for an answer, but no one has found it.”