Caring for North Texas’ Most Vulnerable Animals, Regardless of Zip Code

In recent days, some have asked why the SPCA of Texas is no longer directly serving the City of Dallas with animal cruelty services. We’d like to share some context to this shift in our approach as we make our services available to other cities and counties in need across North Texas.

The City of Dallas is the ninth largest city in the United States. With that population comes a significant amount of city services, including police, code compliance and animal services, that are covered by tax dollars.

For example, the Dallas Police Department’s (DPD) Animal Cruelty Investigation Unit employs three full-time detectives and one full-time lieutenant to meet the needs of nearly 1.3 million Dallas residents. The SPCA of Texas worked alongside DPD in training these officers over the past four years. We continue to offer support with our limited resources to them as requested.

Meanwhile, the remaining 1.665 million residents of Dallas, Ellis, Van Zandt, and Hunt counties have not a single tax-paid animal cruelty officer in their police or sheriff’s departments. All animals deserve the highest quality of care, regardless of location and resources available in a particular zip code, city or county.

As a nonprofit animal welfare organization, the SPCA of Texas has a small, but mighty, team of three full-time investigators – even smaller than DPD’s Animal Cruelty Investigation Unit. When evaluating how we could best serve North Texas’ most vulnerable animals, we chose to deliver our services free of charge for communities that would otherwise have absolutely no options for bringing animal abusers to justice.

We applaud Operation Kindness for offering to provide services to the City of Dallas and its existing team of four full-time Animal Cruelty Investigators within the Dallas Police Department. Collaboration between animal welfare and human services organizations is paramount to creating a safer and more humane North Texas for pets and their people.

Working together – rather than concentrating services in a single geographic area – enables more communities to be served, and more animals to receive the care and support they deserve.

The SPCA of Texas is proud to continue offering our expert animal cruelty investigations and support to the communities right outside those city limits where absolutely no other options exist.

For more, please see our FAQ.