NATCHEZ — With the Natchez-Adams County Humane Society at full capacity, the City of Natchez has limited options for where to put the stray dogs picked up by animal control officers.

“I have three options when I pick up a stray dog,” said Randy Myers, Natchez animal control officer. “Either get them back home where they belong, drop them off at the humane society, or place them in my 10-foot-by-10-foot pen I have. With my pen, I can’t house a female and male together. The dogs have to be of the same gender. And I can only keep two dogs in that pen.”

Myers said he currently has two male dogs in his pen.

“I told him to create a pen,” Natchez Mayor Darryl Grennell said. “(The pen) was created for vicious dogs because the humane society can’t take them due to safety reasons. I told (Myers) to house them in his pen until he can find the dog’s owner.”

If all three options are unavailable and the dog doesn’t have a home, Myers said he can’t do anything with the strays and just lets them roam the streets.

Grennell said letting strays roam freely is not an option going forward.

“We cannot have these stray dogs roaming freely in Natchez,” Grennell said. “We cannot have them tearing up trash and possibly attacking people.”

In late 2017, law enforcement officials in Adams County unearthed Mississippi’s largest dog fighting ring, and more than 56 wounded and hungry dogs were found at the location.

Since many of the confiscated dogs needed care and the humane society could not care for them properly, the Adams County Sheriff’s Office set up a GoFundMe account that raised more than $26,000.

Originally, that $26,000 was given to ASPCA, the organization that transported the wounded and hungry dogs up north, but the ASPCA later gave back that $26,000 to the sheriff’s office, Adams County Sheriff Travis Patten said.

After months of holding onto the money, Patten said the $26,000 is about to be used, but it will not be used to house the city’s stray dogs.

“We still have that money,” Patten said. “We have just been doing our research. We have been visiting other towns in Mississippi and seeing what type of kennels they use. Right now, we have one more town to visit which is Wiggins. After we visit Wiggins, I’ll sit down with my team that is working this job and start on plans to build a site to house abused animals that the sheriff’s office saves on a piece of property that county already owns.”

Patten would not specify where the site would be citing security reasons.

“These kennels will not be used to house picked up strays,” Patten said. “We are not getting into the shelter business. These kennels will be strictly used for dogs that the sheriff’s office rescues from suspected dog fighting operations and that are being processed as evidence.”

Although Patten’s plan does not concern strays, Grennell said he knows the City of Natchez needs to come up with a solution sooner rather than later.

“We need to work out something with the humane society,” Grennell said, “So that they can get more pens on their site to house these animals. Also maybe looking at public works and put some pens out there, in order to house these animals so they aren’t roaming free and terrorizing Natchez.”