In the wake of an incident concerning a rabid skunk reported in last week’s Gazette-Journal, Mathews County Administrator Mindy Moran and Sheriff Mark Barrick want to assure residents that the county is there to help them when they’re faced with such situations.

While it appeared from the article that the county didn’t respond to Mathews resident Joice Davis’s plea for help, said Moran, the fact is that the county did respond, but Davis herself took care of the problem before either animal control or a county deputy could arrive on the scene.

Barrick said that dispatch records at his office show that Davis called his office’s administrative line at 6:21 p.m. March 18 to report that there was a skunk in the pasture chasing her cows. She said she believed that it was rabid and she needed help.

The dispatcher said he would page animal control, after which he paged the two animal control officers via their cell phones, said Barrick.

At 6:36 p.m., just 15 m...