Interview with Milwaukee’s David Flagler: Executive Director of Milwaukee Area Domestic Animal Control

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Situated next to the Journal Sentinel Inc. is a place unknown by many Milwaukeeans. Why you ask? Well, this place is not about rainbows and butterflies and other happy go lucky trademarks. Instead, it houses a very dark reality for Milwaukee’s undesired pet population.

Beginning with its inception in 1999, the Milwaukee Area Domestic Animal Control Commission or MADACC, takes in roughly 13,000 stray, abused, abandoned and confiscated animals a year. And of those poor souls, more than half never leave and are euthanized in order to make room for more.

David Flagler, who recently entered the scene as MADACC’s third executive director, brings with him 29 years of animal control experience. His compassion and interest in animals began while training military dogs and narcotics dogs for the U.S. Air Force (among other endeavors) and is still flourishing in him today. So what does this mean, if anything, for the future of Milwaukee’s pet overpopulation?

Putz: How does Milwaukee compare to other animal control facilities you’ve worked at?

Flagler: Milwaukee is unique in that MADACC serves 19 jurisdictions, and that although we are not the county government program, we serve all of the county’s jurisdictions. Of course that arrangement provides a cost savings to the jurisdictions from having to support an individual animal control program in each of the cities.

It’s been my experience that each community faces similar problems. Milwaukee is not the only area in the country that is facing problems with pet overpopulation. In most communities there is a tremendous surplus of pit bull dogs and most animal shelters have witnessed a decline in adoptions as a result of the economic downturn. The good news is that we’ve reached an era in our business where people are no longer making impulse decisions when they adopt a pet. They really give some thought about the cost of pet ownership.

Putz: What future endeavors will you head for MADACC?

Flagler: My plan is to do the right thing for the animals and the community. I believe that every animal deserves a home, however, in our economic times that may be difficult. But I see that it’s my job, if I want to sleep well at night, to make sure that I do everything in my power to put animals into a good home. My plans for the community are to continue to keep the streets safe from dangerous animals and to educate people. I see that part of my role is to teach people that being a responsible pet owner is one of the first steps in being a good neighbor.

[In addition], we’ve been panhandling local organizations to place our animals, but I hope to expand the adoptions that we do in house.

Putz: Since community partnership is key in the overall success rate of animal survival and placement, would you say that Milwaukee is headed in the right direction?

Flagler: Melanie Sobel [previous executive director] did an excellent job of reaching out into the community and I hope to expand her efforts by expanding our volunteer base and encouraging more community education. It’s my feeling that providing animal control for any community is well beyond the ability of any one organization. It is critical that we engage in partnerships to make our community a humane community. We need the resources of other local animal welfare groups and community groups, and my job is to maintain those relationships.

Generally speaking, it’s very rare to find a community in which the animal groups are working together to solve the community problems. I’ve worked in a number of communities that did and by working together we proved that we could be quite a successful force. To often animal groups just spend their time nit picking one another’s programs and they accomplish very little.

Putz: What can the community do to help these animals?

Flagler: The first thing that the community can do is understand their obligation to be a responsible pet owner—every pet owner should spay or neuter their pet, make sure their pet is wearing a current license, and is not running loose in the neighborhood. The best way to save an animal is to make sure that it is not born into a world where it is not wanted. Now its always been my mantra that the best way to decrease euthanasia is to reduce intakes.

So my first action is to prevent fertile animals from leaving my shelter without insurance that the animals will be sterilized. We do not want to have our shelter alumni adding to the pet overpopulation problem and so I mentioned earlier that pit bulls are a particular problem in most communities. So I would say to pit bull owners, if you are breeding pit bulls STOP! Our shelter is full of pit bulls, and we don’t need anymore. And you’re not doing the breed a favor by overwhelming the community with the breed.

I will attempt to make it easier for animal rescue organizations to obtain animals from us as we work to wrap up our own adoptions. From the community I expect support. Animal control is a very difficult profession even under the best of circumstances the community needs to see that we are dealing with a community problem—pet overpopulation was not caused by the folks at MADACC. Solving the problem of our community is going to require a collaborative effort. It’s easy to criticize the organization, but what we need is people to roll up their sleeves and take an active role in helping the plight of the pets in our community.

If you are interested in volunteering, donating, fostering or adopting an animal information can be found here: www.madacc.com