We are sadden to hear of the mistaken euthanasia of the Aussie dogs at Dallas Animal Services over the New Years holiday. As the Dallas morning News editorial stated, it is a dark day at DAS indeed, but as we have come to know it, this is a just a regular day at DAS. These Aussie dogs just happen to have notoriety on facebook and blogs and so there is public outrage. Countless dogs slip through the cracks via mistakes, miscommunication, poor training, and confusion around DAS policy everyday.
Sometimes the “best you can do with what you have” is just not good enough. Dog lovers – please petition your city leaders for a full external audit and overhaul of Dallas Animal Services.
Current best practices and training practices are so ineffective and insufficient tragic mistakes are made everyday. Mistakes in life and death temperament assessments, mistakes in simple tasks like documenting people’s contact information, mistakes in contacting chipped pet’s owners, even in adoption practices.
Conflicting information and incorrect policy is constantly being given out to the public. Regardless of being shorthanded or understaffed, all DAS staff should be competent and understand policy – including management. If the challenges of training temp employees is too much, then overhaul the system. If DAS and City management doesn’t have time to set a vision and address the issues in a timely manner, bring in a consultant who can.
We are saddened to hear about the tragic mistake today resulting in the mistaken euthanasia of the Aussie rescues. We are not among the crowd waiting with baited breath to see the “official investigation and report”. It took months for DAS to investigate the inhumane and inept darting of Tasha the husky. They shot her with a tranquilizer dart intended for a cow – not a dog dart – a cattle dart. Then after the inept and inappropriate use of a deadly weapon, they didn’t catch her. They didn’t notify anyone, and they left her loose to suffer and almost die of an infection caused by the dart that was embedded in her shoulder bone. They never came back to check on her or came back to try to recapture her. Private citizens alerted to her injury worked tirelessly to capture and rehabilitate her. This is the moment Gypsy Dog Ops was born.
After months of waiting for a report from the”investigation”, Jody Jones looked us in the eye and said, “it wasn’t our dart”. I asked for the paperwork surrounding the investigation or the official report. There wasn’t one. She just looked at me, our vet, Scott Griggs and Chris Watts and said, “we didn’t do it”. No proof. No report. No apologies. This is the moment Gypsy Dog Ops knew our true mission. It was not just about rescuing dogs, we knew that without systemic change in policy and procedure at DAS, this could and would happen again in many forms. Tasha and all of Dallas’ dogs, including the Aussie dogs, deserve better.
DAS would be smart to start to open up their minds to transparency and honesty with the public. We already know what goes on up there at DAS, maybe even better than management does. Why do you think people so passionately resist taking animals to DAS.
The city and DAS might not want to officially acknowledge the problem because of PR and image issues – but this city already has the black eye and the reputation of not putting the appropriate amount of resources toward animal issues for a city of this size and caliber. The emperor has no clothes – this city is making national headlines for its loose and dangerous dog problem.
It is fine to say that things are better that the times when there was a cat in the wall, but don’t expect a parade for slightly better than inhumane substandard care and customer service. We’re not going to throw you a parade when we can’t safely walk in our neighborhoods for fear of loose dogs.
DAS get over the baseline best practices and a base level standard of care and customer service and I’ll throw you a parade! In the meantime, show the public a short and long term plan that will address and fix these vastly documented and identified issues. We know, we know, you won’t be able to get to that because you are tied up making an official report on the Aussie dogs.
Again, dog lovers – please petition your city leaders for a full external audit and overhaul of Dallas Animal Services.