NORTH ADAMS — There’s a new animal control officer in town.

After years in the role as the city’s animal control officer, Carrie Loholdt has resigned and left for a new job, Mayor Jennifer Macksey and Police Chief Mark Bailey told The Eagle.

“[Loholdt] was great with the animals, and no one can do the job like her,” Macksey said.

Serving in Loholdt’s stead will be Officer Matthew Reynolds, who Macksey and Bailey say has been getting up to speed in the past month.

“Reynolds is still a police officer, but he’ll be a police officer with animal control officer responsibilities,” Macksey said. “We found in the past that sometimes in dealing with people, we had to call a police officer, and we thought this would save on cost and be more efficient.

“You get a different feel when you have a civilian versus a police officer knocking on your door about your dog,” Macksey added.

Reynolds and Loholdt could not be reached for immediate comment Wednesday.

Bailey said the flexibility of the position works well for the department.

“He can patrol when there’s no animal calls, and he can do animal calls. It’s essentially a blended position,” he said. “We bring our animals down to the pound, and the ACO takes care of the animals when they’re there.”

Bailey noted that animals don’t normally stay long — owners usually pick their pets up right away.

In 2019, the city opened an animal shelter on Hodges Cross Road, part of a facility that houses several city departments. At the time, Loholdt told The Eagle that the shelter was a major improvement for her ability to provide a clean, warm, safe area for pets that had been experiencing trauma of one kind or another.

Before the shelter opened, Loholdt had to work with the Berkshire Humane Society, Sonsini Animal Shelter and Second Chance Animal Shelter. If that failed, she found foster homes, or adopted the lost creatures herself. She told the Eagle in 2019 that she had wound up adopting four dogs, 15 cats, 21 chickens, seven ducks, two rabbits and two guinea pigs, which lived on a farm with her and her husband.

An animal control officer can deal with all types of wild, farm and house domesticated animals, usually those who are lost, stray or abandoned, displaced in a fire, or seized from owners due to abuse or arrest.

Firefighters and Loholdt were involved in the saving of a pet cat from a fire in 2020, as she rushed the kitty to the veterinarian.