Animal Services Officer

Scope of Work

Performs all duties related to the public education and enforcement of Animal Services ordinances and state and local health laws.

Essential Job Duties

• Responds to citizen inquiries regarding nuisance animals, dead animal pick-up, animal capture and disease information.

• Investigates rabies inquiries, gathers victim and owner information, captures animals for quarantine and advises on state rabies control laws. Prepares and ships rabies specimens.

• Captures and restrains, releases or disposes of wild animals such as skunks, bats, foxes, badgers, and opossums.

• Manages livestock by capturing, returning, restraining or removing from premises.

• Enforces state and local laws and ordinances. Writes reports and issues citations.

• Cares for animals in the shelter. Feeds, grooms, verifies health status and provides first aid as necessary.

• Provides information to the public regarding laws and ordinances. Gives tours of the animal shelter. Speaks at schools and for local civic organizations.

• Maintains the animal shelter.

• Cares for vehicles and related equipment. Maintains inventory in truck such as door tags and impoundment cards. Restocks as necessary.

• Assists with animal shelter duties such as citizen contacts, dispatching calls and cleaning the shelter and cages.

• Euthanizes animals and properly disposes of remains.

• Participates in the on-call rotation and responds to off-duty emergency calls such as animal bites, aggressive animals, sick or injured animals, and assists other agencies as needed.

• Maintains and operates the animal cremation system for mass disposal cremations.

• Picks up large quantities of dead animals from veterinarians for disposal by cremation.

• Works in all types of weather conditions.

• Performs other duties as assigned.

Physical and Environmental Conditions

Ability to sit, stand and drive a vehicle to and from various work sites. Employee will be exposed to extreme temperatures while patrolling and retrieving animals and maintaining kennel and grounds. Ability to lift, crawl, twist, squat and climb while pursuing animals. Employee will be exposed to unleashed dogs, and hostile property and/or business owners. Employees also may work around potentially hazardous chemicals or dangerous animals while moving them toorfrom different areas. Ability to lift bags of materials such as dog food or animals regularly.

Required Qualifications

Employee communicates with other employees in the work group and will respond to questions from the general public regarding ordinances, animal services, or animals. Will interact with the public when issuing citations for ordinance violations. May also appear in municipal court to testify. Employee works with schools and civic organizations in providing information about animal services. Employee also contacts outside agencies in order to provide or receive information regarding animal laboratory reports or investigations.

Ability to read and understand manuals and state and other regulations in order to record work activities, complete required records or provide information to the public. Knowledge of the equipment necessary to restrain animals such as catch poles, trucks, and various traps and cages. Skill in math in order to compute and maintain various records and measure chemicals. Employee develops correspondence with other state and local agencies and maintains records.

High school diploma or equivalent required. Must be able to obtain a Basic Animal Control Officer Certification within 6 months of employment. Must have a valid Texas driver's license.