{"id":1999,"date":"2013-03-27T03:58:02","date_gmt":"2013-03-27T03:58:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gypsydogops.com\/?p=1999"},"modified":"2014-06-17T02:17:44","modified_gmt":"2014-06-17T02:17:44","slug":"tasha-goes-to-city-hall","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.gypsydogops.com\/?p=1999","title":{"rendered":"Tasha goes to City Hall"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tasha\u2019s pack\u2019s struggle<\/a> has touched many people, most especially me. In my heart, Tasha\u2019s journey<\/a> will not end when she is fully domesticated.\u00a0Her story<\/a> will only be finished when the change she inspires is fully enacted. Today was a very promising first step.<\/p>\n

This afternoon, Dr May<\/a> and I met with city councilman Scott Griggs<\/a>,\u00a0 Animal Services<\/a> Director Jody Jones, and Dallas Animal Shelter Commission <\/a>member Chris Watts.\u00a0 We requested the meeting to ensure that the\u00a0leadership\u00a0at City Hall\u00a0and at Animal Services are aware of the feral dog pack issues in our neighborhood and\u00a0to make them \u00a0aware of\u00a0Animal\u00a0Services’\u00a0 ineffective, undesirable, and\u00a0often inhumane\u00a0 response to the pack\u00a0issues over the last 3 years.<\/p>\n

\"TashaCItyHall\"<\/a>The meeting was very productive and collaborative. We are hopeful that change will be\u00a0instituted that aligns Animal\u00a0Services policies with their mission statement and will allow Animal Services to more effectively handle feral dog issues.\u00a0 The meeting resulted in a task list of items to be\u00a0 researched\u00a0and assessed over the next two weeks. All of the items\u00a0on the task list below are due\u00a0to be reported back to the group on April 9th. \u00a0Next steps will be assessed at that time.<\/p>\n

One of our key topics of conversation was communication and coordination<\/strong>. From this discussion,\u00a0councilman Griggs\u00a0has requested that Animal Services put together a comprehensive \u00a0matrix for: types of Animal Services 311 calls, priorities of call, “call buckets”\u00a0and the like\u00a0so that when residents call 311, all calls are not treated with\u00a0the same “1-72 hours” response. Animal Services is already working with 311\u00a0to integrate and improve customer service for animal control calls, this matrix will help facilitate that conversation. Once the matrix is produced, another conversation will follow\u00a0up to\u00a0help\u00a0\u00a0facilitate communication between 311 and Animal Services regarding ongoing cases and general reporting.<\/p>\n

Based on our experiences, we also identified several areas where darting and trapping procedures<\/strong> and policies needed to be clarified for both citizens and employees.\u00a0 To help facilitate this clarity, councilman Griggs requested trapping and darting policy\u00a0be placed in a procedural\u00a0 flow chart.<\/p>\n

Animal\u00a0Services will also be investigating the “darting incident” to identify if the dart\u00a0found embedded\u00a0in our husky\u00a0rescue was an Animal\u00a0Services dart. If the dart is not confirmed as an Animal\u00a0Services dart, procedure will begin to notify the appropriate authorities of this incident.<\/p>\n

We all agreed to a set of temporary darting procedures that will be in place over the next two weeks while policy is being reviewed. This temporary procedure requires a signature\u00a0from a manager or a veterinarian for a darting request to be approved. The darting can only be performed by a trained field supervisor.<\/p>\n

These are small but significant steps towards a more effective and humane\u00a0Animal Services.\u00a0\u00a0We are thankful for the opportunity and for all the people that helped get us to this opportunity to change our great neighborhood, the city, and most importantly, the lives of the animals.<\/p>\n

If you are curious about all the issues we addressed in our meeting, we’ll be posting our full meeting agenda and presentation document<\/a> in the near future. Check back around April 10th for our next update from City Hall.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/code><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tasha\u2019s pack\u2019s struggle has touched many people, most especially me. In my heart, Tasha\u2019s journey will not end when she is fully domesticated.\u00a0Her story will only be finished when the change she inspires is fully enacted. Today was a very promising first step. This afternoon, Dr May and I met with city councilman Scott Griggs,\u00a0 Animal Services Director Jody Jones, and Dallas Animal Shelter Commission member Chris Watts.\u00a0 We requested the meeting to ensure that the\u00a0leadership\u00a0at City Hall\u00a0and at Animal Services are aware of the feral dog pack issues in our neighborhood and\u00a0to make them \u00a0aware of\u00a0Animal\u00a0Services’\u00a0 ineffective, undesirable, and\u00a0often inhumane\u00a0 response to the pack\u00a0issues over the last 3 years. The meeting was very productive and collaborative. We are hopeful that change will be\u00a0instituted that aligns Animal\u00a0Services policies with their mission statement and will allow Animal Services to more effectively handle feral dog issues.\u00a0 The meeting resulted in a task list of items to be\u00a0 researched\u00a0and assessed over the next two weeks. All of the items\u00a0on the task list below are due\u00a0to be reported back to the group on April 9th. \u00a0Next steps will be assessed at that time. One of our key topics of conversation was communication and coordination. From this discussion,\u00a0councilman Griggs\u00a0has requested that Animal Services put together a comprehensive \u00a0matrix for: types of Animal Services 311 calls, priorities of call, “call buckets”\u00a0and the like\u00a0so that when residents call 311, all calls are not treated with\u00a0the same “1-72 hours” response. Animal Services is already working with 311\u00a0to integrate and improve customer service for animal control calls, this matrix will help facilitate that conversation. Once the matrix is produced, another conversation will follow\u00a0up to\u00a0help\u00a0\u00a0facilitate communication between 311 and Animal Services regarding ongoing cases and general reporting. Based on our experiences, we also identified several areas where darting and trapping procedures and policies needed to be clarified for both citizens and employees.\u00a0 To help facilitate this clarity, councilman Griggs requested trapping and darting policy\u00a0be placed in a procedural\u00a0 flow chart. Animal\u00a0Services will also be investigating the “darting incident” to identify if the dart\u00a0found embedded\u00a0in our husky\u00a0rescue was an Animal\u00a0Services dart. If the dart is not confirmed as an Animal\u00a0Services dart, procedure will begin to notify the appropriate authorities of this incident. We all agreed to a set of temporary darting procedures that will be in place over the next two weeks while policy is being reviewed. This temporary procedure requires a signature\u00a0from a manager or a veterinarian for a darting request to be approved. The darting can only be performed by a trained field supervisor. These are small but significant steps towards a more effective and humane\u00a0Animal Services.\u00a0\u00a0We are thankful for the opportunity and for all the people that helped get us to this opportunity to change our great neighborhood, the city, and most importantly, the lives of the animals. If you are curious about all the issues we addressed in our meeting, we’ll be posting our full meeting agenda and presentation document in the near future. Check back around April 10th for our next update from City Hall. \u00a0    <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2042,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,6,10,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1999","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-follow-our-progress-with-the-city","category-featured-1","category-this-that","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/www.gypsydogops.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/03\/cityHall.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gypsydogops.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1999","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gypsydogops.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gypsydogops.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gypsydogops.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gypsydogops.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1999"}],"version-history":[{"count":60,"href":"http:\/\/www.gypsydogops.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1999\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5215,"href":"http:\/\/www.gypsydogops.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1999\/revisions\/5215"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gypsydogops.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2042"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gypsydogops.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1999"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gypsydogops.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1999"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gypsydogops.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1999"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}