We ask a lot of our local law enforcement officers, particularly those in the Enterprise Police Department and the Wallowa County Sheriff’s Office. Even when those agencies are at full staff, which is rare these days, they’re tasked with handling so much and covering so much ground that it’s a wonder how they manage to do it all.

We count on them to keep the bad guys behind bars amid an ever-rising crime rate. That’s their No. 1 job and we’re betting that if you asked them they’d say they simply don’t get enough time to focus on that top priority.

Meanwhile, this week’s Dispatch Log (Page 3) is packed full of animal-response calls, an important but far too frequent responsibility of local officers and deputies. Just in the seven days from July 11-17, there were three calls of horses loose, one report of a loose cow, two animal complaints (often barking or neglect), three reports of dogs missing and three reports of other dogs found.

Those are just the cases that were reported to the county’s dispatch center. Go online and you’ll find social media pages devoted to returning stray animals home and to finding homes for those that have been abandoned.

And it’s not simply a law enforcement issue. The local Humane Society does incredible work with no permanent shelter and on a shoestring budget. Much of this work is done by unpaid volunteers. While chasing down loose animals is a big part of their job, again there are other areas where there time could be put to better use.

There’s no doubt that Wallowa County is an animal-friendly area. Every truck has a dog and every road is lined with livestock, pets and working animals of all sorts.

It’s also true that we get a lot of visitors in the summer, which may help account for our recent summer spike in incidents — it’s easy to lose a dog when you’re on vacation.

Unfortunately, we can’t just blame the tourists. This is a year-round problem, and we can do a much better job of keeping our animals penned up.

Animals are crafty. They find ways to get loose. We can’t simply decide we’re going to keep our animals on our property and poof, it’s done. But we can do our part to secure our yards and pastures before the escape, not after.

This county doesn’t have a bunch of money to throw around. If we’re going to own animals, the least we can do is keep them secured. It’s the neighborly thing to do and the easiest way we all can ensure our precious county tax dollars aren’t being wasted.

— Scot Heisel