Her company will be paid $80,000.

Webster County Animal Protection submitted the only proposal.

As the supervisors considered her proposal, Blomberg introduced herself to the board and said, “This is something that I am extremely passionate about. I have a plan to be proactive instead of reactive. I am going to work hard to make a positive impact for both the people in our community of Webster County and also the animals.”

In her proposal, Blomberg outlined her plan to improve animal control in the county. According to the proposal, the primary elements of Animal Protection will be “Retrieve lost animals, maintain public safety, educate the public with transparency, advocate for responsible pet ownership, know the law and keep up with changes as they occur, help manage and alleviate local feral cat population around Fort Dodge, understand the bond between humans and their pets, being available to the public, and follow up on unethical treatment claims.”

Blomberg said her first experience helping with animal rescue came last December when she was helping a local non-profit.

“Something unfortunate happened to the people in the household and they had three animals in crates…We did end up getting the animals out, which was awesome. The family did end up surrendering those animals and then all three of those dogs were adopted.” she said.

In addition, Blomberg owns and operates Lucky Dog Training and has extensive experience working with her own rescue dog.

“I rescued a dog about a year and a half ago and we started working together. She was a severely traumatized dog and now she is very close to what I would consider to be a normal, not-anxiety-ridden and fearful dog. I think that really kind of pushed me over the edge on how important I believe rescue is,” she said.

Blomberg said two of her big goals will be informing the community about what animal control does and working on the feral cat population.

“I don’t think people know a ton about what the ordinances in place are or necessarily what they mean. So I really want to work on informing our community on some of that stuff. I really want to work on the feral cat population here in town. During COVID, I think a lot of vets were not doing elective surgeries, so some of that trap and release that would happen where animals would get fixed wasn’t happening…That’s not anybody’s fault. But I want to try to get that back in check so we can hopefully take some of the burden off of the shelters,” she said.

Animal control is a contract position and is paid for by the city and county. The City of Fort Dodge pays 75 percent of the contract as the majority of calls are within city limits. Blomberg intends to operate Webster County Animal Protection as a business with a small team.

“I think that is one of the really difficult things about a position like this is it’s traditionally been run by one person, and it’s a 365 day job, and I don’t think that that’s feasible to work and not have burnout. So I have one other person that is going to jump in so far with me,” she said. “I really want to be a team with the community. I don’t want to put it on the community, but it takes everybody, it takes trainers and it takes nonprofits and it takes neighbors just looking out for other neighbors, it really takes everybody to make a difference.”

Blomberg said she hopes the experience can be positive for everyone.

“It’s really easy for people to talk negatively about it, but I want to look forward to all possibilities and being proactive and being reactive and working together as a whole. I just really want this to be a positive experience for myself, but also for the community,” she said.