In 2007, the City of Topeka spent $100,000 dollars on housing vicious dogs. That's up $80,000 from just six years ago.

After animal control picks up a dog that has been called in to them as being potentially vicious, they house the animal in a special section of Helping Hands Humane Society.

The city has to pay Helping Hands for caring for the animals at a cost of $9.63 per day. Some of the animals are waiting to go to court to determine their fate which can take up to eight or nine months.

That means, a single dog could cost the city roughly $2,600. The city pays for housing animals that are abused or neglected, so that goes into the cost as well.

Animal control and Helping Hands agree, the only way to combat these rising costs is for dog owners to be more responsible.

"They need to be prepared to take care of a pet before they take it into their home," said Carol Stubbs of Helping Hands Humane Society.

"Obviously we would want people to be more responsible pet owners especially if they have a dog they know is potentially aggressive to people or other animals," said Linda Halford, Topeka Animal Control Manager. "With a lot of the vicious dog calls, they are attacking other animals as well. They need to keep them put up to where there can't be a problem, they can't hurt anyone or another animal."

Halford also said by noon Monday they had already received five calls on vicious dogs and with a staff of only five people right now, these types of calls can take up a lot of time, which could be spent helping injured or abused and neglected animals.

The highest cost to the city in the past seven years was in 2003 when it was roughly $137,000.