City departments partner to tackle animal care and responsibility issues

The city of Dallas and its 1.3 million residents love their four-legged friends. But with pet ownership comes much responsibility and adherence to local codes and laws. Dallas Animal Services (DAS) is diligently working with other City departments, including Dallas Police Department (DPD), Code Compliance, 311, Court & Detention and Sanitation Services, to develop best-practice action items for addressing loose and stray dog incidents and the dumping of deceased animals in public and private areas.

DAS currently provides daily care for hundreds of animals in the shelter, responds to calls regarding animal welfare, conducts free Responsible Pet Ownership classes, holds offsite animal adoption events and provides educational information to public safety and neighborhood organizations.

DAS presented a metric-focused plan of action to the Dallas City Council’s Quality of Life Committee on October 26. The plan proposed five specific areas of action from November 2015 to March 2016, including a targeted geographical response initiative, achieving full staffing, improving technology, enhancing community outreach and identifying options to increase intake capacity

DAS will deploy existing resources to targeted areas based on five months of data applied to an interactive mapping tool that identified the highest concentrations of loose and stray dog service requests. These resources will focus on enforcement of loose and stray dogs, survey residents, track outcomes and apply the methodology to each identified target area. DAS is currently in the process of hiring for 41 position vacancies. By April 2016, DAS will fully deploy these newly trained resources to Southern Dallas teams to address high capacity, targeted areas.

DAS intakes more than 27,000 dogs and cats each year and answers nearly 50,000 calls for service covering 343 square miles. More than 800 animals are adopted or reunited with owners each month. DASs vision for intake capacity is to match need with possible home fostering, an ordinance review and evaluation of three potential City facilities, including a second shelter in southeast Dallas.

For more information on DAS visit: http://www.dallasanimalservices.org